Via Fox News: New York Mayor Bill de Blasio says the explosion in random slashings this year shows the city is getting guns off the streets, but critics say it’s another NYPD policy that is driving the blade attacks: The end of stop-and-frisk.
De Blasio’s claim earlier this month that violent criminals are using knives, razor blades and boxcutters to maim strangers because they can’t get their hands on firearms prompted skepticism from law enforcement experts. Slashings have jumped about 20 percent this year compared to the first three months of 2015, with attacks occurring on the subway, at tourist attractions and in outer borough neighborhoods long plagued by crime.
Asked for evidence backing up the mayor’s claim about guns, the NYPD sent FoxNews.com data showing that gun-related arrests in 2016 have risen to 559 from 476 during the same period last year. And that at the same time as they arrested more people for having guns, shooting incidents fell to 130 from 161 and murders fell to 44 from 63.
Those statistics are consistent with the mayor’s argument, but Prendergast noted that crimes in general are up. There were 402 more felonious assaults so far this year compared to the same time period last year – a 14 percent increase. Through the first two months of the year, there were 567 slashing attacks, some 20 percent above the pace set in early 2015.Police data also show that shootings, while down in 2016 so far, are still higher than they were two years ago when de Blasio took office.“I have lived and worked in New York City my whole life and it is definitely starting to remind me of the 1980s as far as unsavory characters being a lot more visible,” Prendergast said.
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