New York City records its safest start to a year in decades

Gun violence hits record lows early in 2026

New York City just posted its safest January and February for gun violence since the NYPD started keeping track.

The city recorded 83 shooting incidents and 97 shooting victims across those two months, the lowest totals since CompStat tracking began in 1994.

The old records were 92 shooting incidents, set in 2025, and 105 victims, set in 2019. Murders also dropped to 32, beating the previous low of 38 from 2018.

CompStat tracks crime back to 1994

When the NYPD says “recorded history,” it means since 1994, not all of New York City’s history.

That’s when the department launched CompStat, a computer-based system that tracks seven major crime categories: murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny, and grand larceny auto.

Crime data existed before that, but the city tracked it differently. The older numbers aren’t directly comparable, so 1994 is the starting line for these records.

NYPD credits its winter policing plan

Commissioner Jessica Tisch pointed to targeted, data-driven policing as the reason for the drop.

The department’s Winter Violence Reduction Plan put up to 1,800 uniformed officers on nightly foot patrols across 64 zones in 33 precincts, public housing, and the subway system.

In those specific zones, major crime fell about 23% and shootings dropped about 67% since the plan launched in January. The strategy focused resources where crime was most likely to happen.

January drove most of the improvement

January did most of the heavy lifting. The city saw just 40 shooting incidents and 47 victims that month, both record lows for any January. Murders fell to 12, down from 30 in January 2025.

Manhattan and Staten Island didn’t record a single murder all month.

So while the combined January-February numbers look historic, January’s sharp drop is the main reason the two-month totals set new records.

February told a different story

February wasn’t quite as strong. Shooting incidents actually ticked up slightly, from 42 in February 2025 to 43 this year.

The number of people struck by gunfire also rose, from 43 to 50. Murders did fall sharply, though, dropping about 33% from 24 to 16.

That made it the second-lowest February for murders on record. The NYPD released its official data in a press release on March 2.

Still, February shows the progress wasn’t across the board.

Major crime dropped in every borough

Beyond shootings, major crime fell about 8% citywide, with roughly 1,100 fewer reported crimes compared to last year. Burglary dropped nearly 20%, hitting its lowest level on record for this point in the year.

Retail theft fell about 25% in February. Robbery, felony assault, grand larceny, and auto theft all declined between about 6% and 7%.

Every borough saw improvement, which the department says reflects a citywide strategy rather than gains in just a few neighborhoods.

Public housing saw its safest start ever

Public housing had its best January-February period on record for shootings, victims, murders, and robberies. Shooting incidents in public housing dropped about 46%, and victims fell about 36% compared to last year.

Robberies declined about 33%. Overall crime in public housing fell about 15% in February and about 12% for the year so far.

Those are big numbers for developments that have historically seen some of the city’s highest rates of violent crime.

Transit crime bucked the trend in February

Not everything improved. Transit crime jumped about 19% in February, rising from 162 incidents to 192.

The NYPD blamed record cold temperatures that shifted where people spent time.

During the extreme cold, the department paused its policy of removing rule-violating riders from the subway, which led to 61% fewer ejections than in January.

The increase came mostly from felony assaults and nonviolent grand larcenies on the system.

Subway crime still sits below past levels

Even with February’s jump, transit crime was still down about 8% compared to two years ago and about 4% from seven years ago.

The NYPD said the daily average worked out to about six major felonies across a system carrying millions of riders each day. The department added about 140 officers per day to the transit system in response.

But subway assaults remain a concern. Independent analysis shows they have tripled since 2009.

Felony assaults keep climbing despite the gains

Here’s the catch in all the good news: felony assaults have risen for six straight years and now sit at their highest level since the late 1990s.

They outnumber murders by roughly 97 to 1, making them a high-volume problem that affects far more New Yorkers.

While shootings and murders grabbed the headlines, this persistent climb in assaults stands as a notable exception to the broader downward trend in major crime.

Early crime numbers tend to get revised upward

There’s a reason to take these numbers with some caution.

An independent review by Vital City found that every one of 95 monthly crime totals between 2018 and November 2025 got revised upward after the initial release.

January 2025 murders, for example, were first reported at 25 but later bumped to 30. Felony assault figures typically rise about 4% as medical records upgrade misdemeanor injuries to felonies.

The current record-low numbers are preliminary and may shift.

Warmer months will test the early gains

The drop in crime wasn’t steady through 2025. November and December both saw higher crime than the same months in 2024, raising questions about whether early 2026’s gains will hold as temperatures rise.

Reported rape also continued to climb, up about 2% in February, partly because a 2024 law broadened the legal definition of rape in New York.

The NYPD also changed how it reports hate crimes in February 2026, which could affect future comparisons.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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