(The Center Square) — New York’s Democratic leaders are touting a substantial drop in crime in the Big Apple as they try to ward off a possible takeover of the city by President Donald Trump.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul joined newly sworn-in New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and law enforcement leaders to highlight newly released data from the New York City Police Department showing that murders, shootings and other violent crimes were down citywide last year.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch ticked off the latest data showing there’s been a 3% decline in major crime in 2025 with 121,542 incidents overall vs. 125,026 in 2024. Murder was down by 20.2% citywide, with 77 fewer homicides than in 2024, she said. Robberies were down citywide by nearly 10%, with 15,065 incidents, while burglary was down nearly 4%, and theft was down by 5%, she said.
In December alone, shootings in New York City’s five boroughs, including Manhattan, fell 43% with “just” 35 incidents reported, Tisch said, dropping to the lowest monthly level ever recorded.
“We see the headlines and we hear the pundits talk about crime being out of control in our city,” she said in her remarks. “These numbers tell a very different story.”
Tisch credited the NYPD’s “policing strategy” that included “putting an unprecedented number of cops on the streets” and “conducting targeted takedowns of the most violent gangs operating in our city.”
Hochul, who is up for reelection this year, credited the NYPD for the “historic” reduction in crime last year, but also touted her administration’s creation of an interstate anti-gun task force and $3 billion in new state funding for law enforcement during her term in office. She also cited efforts to tighten the state’s bail and pre-trial discovery laws to keep repeat offenders “from walking free on technicalities.”
“These numbers are nothing short of extraordinary,” Hochul, a first-term Democrat, boasted in remarks. “We’re not spiking the football, because we always know that something can change, but today is a milestone — something that we could not have foreseen four years ago, when I first became governor. We were besieged by crime.”
The governor vowed to continue those efforts and teased that she plans to roll out proposed regulations on Wednesday aimed at tightening gun control laws for so-called 3-D printed “ghost” guns.
Mamndani, who took office on Jan. 1, said the historic drop in crime last year — which occurred under his predecessor, Eric Adams — is proof that New York City is a safe place to live and visit. He praised the NYPD for its work to reduce crime.
“These numbers, whether they represent fewer robberies or fewer victims of gun violence, mean a more vibrant, joyful city,” the 33-year-old said in remarks Tuesday. “It’s measured in restaurants and bodegas that keep their doors open later and families that don’t hurry home when the light begins to fade from the sky.”
New York is one of several Democratic-run cities where the Trump administration has sought to deploy National Guard troops to crack down on criminal activity and enforce immigration laws. Those deployments have been mostly blocked by federal court rulings.
Trump has suggested the federal government might need to take over New York City if Mamdani was elected, but relations between the two men recently thawed after a cordial meeting at the White House, shortly after he was declared the winner of November’s three-way mayoral race.
Meanwhile, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has threatened to withhold federal funding from New York over crime in the New York City subway system.