NYPD deputy commissioner touts efforts to trigger ‘steady decline’ in shootings

NYPD Deputy Commissioner John Miller touted his division’s efforts which have just lately spurred a “steady decline” in Big Apple shootings, declaring in a brand new interview that the nation’s largest police drive is “firing on all cylinders.”

“We’re making really good progress on the gun crime, which is important,” Miller stated on WABC’s “The Cats Roundtable” in a radio look out Sunday. “Our gun arrests are at a 28-year high. We are firing on all cylinders.”

Miller added that the town is “rounding seven weeks of steady decline in shootings.”

“That is not an accident; that is the result of a strategy,” he continued, explaining that the NYPD “flooded the Bronx with cops” after a spate of shootings within the borough and “intensified” presence of Strategic Response Team members there.

According to figures launched Friday, the NYPD recorded 118 shootings in May — down from 172 in 2021. But final month’s tally was considerably greater than the 61 shootings reported in May 2019.

Speaking to the radio present hosts, Miller, the deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism, famous that police are tasked with balancing public notion of security and what precise crime stats are exhibiting.

“It’s hard, because there’s a difference … between how safe people are, and how safe they feel they are. And the things that make people feel less safe are not really necessarily violent crime,” he stated. “It’s the confrontational individual you will notice on the road or within the subway; it’s the indicators of dysfunction out on the road.

“And what we’re trying to do is attack that on all fronts.”

Over 2,500 extra index crimes — together with larcenies, robberies and automotive break-ins — have been reported in May in comparison with May 2019, in keeping with the brand new statistics.

Meanwhile, grand larcenies rose by greater than 42% in comparison with final yr, 4,116 vs. 2,897, whereas robberies have been up 26.2% and burglaries elevated by 28.4%.

Miller additionally took goal at progressive felony justice reform, saying it’s created “limited consequences” for sure crimes that embolden repeat offenders — echoing sentiments expressed by NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell and Mayor Eric Adams.

“These are crimes that are largely not bail eligible now,” he stated. “If somebody comes in and steals from the same store every day, and walks out and we catch him every day, the judge has no ability to hold him [even if] they know that crime is going to happen again.”

Under the 2019 bail-reform legislation, judges have been barred from setting bail in misdemeanor and plenty of non-violent felony circumstances. In April, Gov. Kath Hochul and state lawmakers rolled again a few of these reforms within the state finances, permitting extra repeat offenders to be held in jail pre-trial.

But Miller needs to see these modifications go even additional.

“These are the laws that were changed,” Miller stated. “Those need to be adjusted again.”

“Until the judges have the power to say this person is a hazard to their fellow citizens, we’re the only state in America where a judge can’t cite dangerousness as a reason to keep somebody in [custody],” he added. “We’re going to see those repeat offenders know that consequences can be very limited.”

Also in the course of the interview that aired Sunday, Miller questioned a proposed invoice that will restrict using track lyrics as proof in felony circumstances.

The “Rap Music on Trial” laws — launched by state Sens. Brad Hoylman and Jamaal Bailey and handed by the state Senate final month however not but signed into legislation — would change state felony process laws in an effort to bar prosecutors from utilizing artists’ “creative or artistic expression” towards them until they supply “clear and convincing proof” of a direct connection between the work and the alleged crime.

“I get the idea of protecting art,” Miller stated, “but in a city where we have gangs who are using drill rap to call each other out and those things are actually resulting in shootings and murders and shooting kids, I’m just not sure that that is the most useful legislative approach to make that problem better.”