The NYPD is putting 2,600 police officers on foot patrol this summer during the late evening and early morning hours to head off an anticipated surge in violence.

“We want to have more officers walking the beat; we want to ensure that we’re investing in young people and the kinds of programs we put forward,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at a news conference.

What You Need To Know

About 2,600 police officers will be on foot patrol this summer during the late evening and early morning hours

The NYPD is bringing 200 more officers to the Bronx as part of a new patrol strategy

This year through May 17, there were over 1,226 fewer major felony crimes in the Bronx — an 11% decrease from last year

There will also be 200 more officers in the Bronx due to the NYPD splitting the borough into two command posts.

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul were together in the South Bronx to discuss this year’s drop in major felony crimes in the borough, compared to last year.

“The largest decline in crime was in one borough, the largest was in this borough, right here in the Bronx,” Hochul said.

“This year, auto theft is down, shootings are down, murders are down,” Mamdani said.

Yet, across the street from the news conference, there was a Crime Stoppers poster offering a $3,500 reward to find a suspect in the killing of 78-year-old Edgar Spence. He was shot in the stomach while in his wheelchair outside at a nearby public housing complex, according to the NYPD.

“I wasn’t surprised, because around that area, there’s a lot of things happening down there even though the precinct is right there,” said Tony Rullan.

Rullan is a resident of the Moore Houses in the Bronx and an official in his tenants’ organization. He spoke to NY1 after watching the news conference.

“If the numbers are down, why do we keep having these shootings? I don’t see the progress in these numbers coming down,” he said.

It’s an election-year pitch for Hochul to highlight a crime drop, though major crime is still higher than 2019 — before the pandemic-era crime spike and the start of progressive criminal justice reforms — reforms that Hochul took credit for changing.

“We had a focus on the repeat offenders, our discovery laws, the bail laws,” she said.

This year through May 17, there were over 1,226 fewer major felony crimes in the Bronx — an 11% decrease from last year. The NYPD said shootings are about 11% down across the borough.

Still, gunfire plagues the Bronx: a 5-year-old girl was injured recently when a bullet grazed her ear. A 15-year-old boy was arrested in connection, according to the NYPD.

Tisch addressed the NYPD’s youth violence strategy.

“One thing that we started this year, which has worked very well in terms of driving down gun violence and other sorts of crime, especially related to youth, is our school corridors,” she said.