Transcript: Mayor Adams Announces Citywide Crime Statistics for 2023

January 3, 2024

Watch the video here at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTrTM6EMy4g

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you so much, and really thank all of you. Not only am I going to talk about crime, but I'm going to do a tour of your new shack space. It's more spacious, got windows. You know, you are a real benevolent police commissioner, finally, being as inclusive as possible.
Crime is down, jobs are up. Tourism is booming, over 60 million tourists. We said it from the beginning, if we make this city safe, it would become a field of dreams. We built it and they're coming and they're bringing their dollars with them.
So, Commissioner Sheppard and Police Commissioner Caban, we just really want to thank you and this entire team that's here for their level of commitment and dedication to keeping the people of this city safe.
And when we did our briefing at Times Square, there were many numbers concerned about the protests, concern about people disrupting our ability to allow people to bring in 2024, and we were very clear that we were not going to allow anyone to disrupt our activities during January 1st, bringing in the new year, and that's exactly what we were able to accomplish.
Not only did you get the message, but those who thought they were going to disrupt our celebration got the message as well. This is the finest police department on the globe, and no one does it better.
You think about it, two years ago, came into office with a mission: public safety is a prerequisite to prosperity. I said that over and over again. And we were focused on three main areas: making our city safer, making our city more economically viable and making our city more livable. We call it the triangle offense: people, places and public safety.
The results are clear. I'll say it over and over again until we all believe it and see it and hear it, crime is down, jobs are up and tourists are back in our city. And we are continuing to roll out programs that make living easier for residents and business owners. 
Today, we're here to talk about our efforts to combat crime. Let me start by reminding you, January 1st, 2022, shootings were spiking. In our first month — first month in office — it was one week where an 11‑month‑old baby, I remember sitting in the hospital with her, Chief Banks — Deputy Mayor Banks, I should say — and I were sitting there speaking with the mom and dad as they were resilient. An 11‑month old baby sitting in the car was shot in her head, and thank God she's still with us.
We had police officers were being shot night after night, and it was all capped off with the double murders of Detectives Rivera and Mora. Just hearing their family members just screaming and yelling, saying it's not true, being in that hospital room with Commissioner Keechant at the time. And that was, I walked out of that hospital that day and realized that we were not going to surrender our streets to those who want to bring about violence, and watching the video of that execution of those two young officers.
But our city is in a different place now. Where we were on January 1st '22 is not where we are now. December 31st, 2023, it's official: overall crime was down in 2023. The promise that we made and the promise that we kept is real, and a promise that has saved lives and laid the foundation for full economic recovery. And the highest ever private sector job numbers in our city's history — the highest private sector job numbers in our city history — 285,000 of which were created under this administration.
When it comes to violent crime, the numbers are even more impressive: both murders and shootings were down double digits once again in 2023. Murder down 12 percent and shooting incidents down 25 percent, the highest decrease in shooting incidents in New York City since 1995. and that built off a double‑digit reduction that was already realized in 2022. 
Shootings were also down in all five boroughs in '23 as compared to 2022. And I just want to be clear: shootings were down not in just one or two boroughs, but all five boroughs. Additionally, five of the seven major index crime categories were down against the past year compared to 2022. 
And transit, as a former transit cop, I want to thank Chief Kemper for what he did in the subway system. No one wanted to ride the trains in January 1st, 2022. But now, crime has dropped in the subway system 2.6 percent in '23, and thanks to our efforts to zero in on grand larceny autos, we saw a major rise in arrests of grand larceny autos this year with almost 2,000 arrests, the highest numbers in 20 years and an overall reduction in grand larceny auto in December.
In the last two years, we removed 13,500 guns off our streets. Those are lives saved. 13,500 guns we took off our streets. And something we hear over and over again, those mopeds, 12,500 illegal mopeds and scooters in 2023, a 74 percent increase over 2022.
We said we were going to focus on illegal use of mopeds. Many were used for crimes and harming innocent people. And we did that. Chief Chell with Chief Maddrey, the combined effort, has done an amazing job of removing this nuisance on the impact on our quality of life.
New York City remains the safest big city in America. What these numbers tell us is that we are turning the corner on crime in the city, and Commissioner Caban and his team and Deputy Mayor Banks, who’s looking our overall public safety apparatus, they are showing the true impact in our city. We put together the right team and had the right strategy.
We have supported our officers not only making sure they receive the pay increase that they deserve as well as 100 percent of our other uniform services, but we've also used technology and tools with Assistant Commissioner Kaz Daughtry scanning the entire country to find the right technology that's needed.
And we looked after the external threats. We know sleeper cells are still out there and looking to harm our city, and that is why it was so important to put in place Deputy Commissioner Weiner who's looking over our entire intelligence operation and looking for all the chatter that's out there to keep us safe.
And now I just again want to thank the commissioner. I'm proud of the administration. I'm proud of the team that he has assembled. But we want to be clear: our work is not done. We're not spiking the ball, we're not saying mission accomplished. There's so much more we have to do. There are bad guys that are out there that believe they're going to harm the people of this city.
We have to fight to ensure that this city stays safe and the quality of life continues to improve every day. We have to push back on any form of making our officers not do police work and do paperwork. That is not what we have hired them to do.
We have a real challenge before us, because idealism cannot collide with the realism of what public safety means to this city. The cornerstone of our success is being safe. That's the cornerstone of our success. And we're going to fight like hard never to surrender, never to give up to make sure we get it done and we get it done correctly.
We're going to continue to protect our subways, to make sure that people can feel comfortable using our system to get to and from their place of employment, for school and for work, and other activities. We're going to continue to invest in prevention through our gun violence prevention task force, crisis management system and our youth programs like Saturday Night Lights. We'll work every day to make New Yorkers safe.
I cannot thank this commissioner enough and I also want to thank the former commissioner who continues to make sure that this was the safe city, Commissioner Keechant, and Commissioner Caban and the entire team that's here have been committed to saving the lives of New Yorkers and going after those who believe they're going to inflict violence in our city.
Not in our New York. Not in our New York. I committed on the campaign trail that we were going to make this city safe, and we have accomplished steps towards that. Much more to do, but New Yorkers are breathing easier because of this team that's here, the men and women who put on that blue uniform every day and take that oath and protect us. run towards danger while others run away from danger. I thank you, commissioner, and I want to turn it over to the police commissioner of the City of New York, Eddie Caban.
Police Commissioner Edward Caban: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for being here. Happy New Year to everyone and welcome to One Police Plaza. Today we'll be reviewing the crime data for 2023 and updating you on the work our officers are doing to keep New Yorkers safe. As we look back on the past year, it is clear that NYPD's efforts to combat gun violence continue to drive significant reductions in violent crime.
At the beginning of this administration shootings in New York City were at a 15‑year high, murders were at a 10‑year high. There was a sense of lawlessness, and we would not tolerate it. We knew what was ahead of us, so from day one we went to work and we made illegal guns our top priority. And the progress we made in 2022 didn't stop there. In 2023, we went even further.
Shooting incidents last year were driven down another 24.7 percent, making it the fourth lowest year in the COMPStat era. There were 416 fewer people shot in 2023 compared to the previous year, which again represents the fourth lowest number of shooting victims in the past 31 years. The work of our sector cops, the FIOs, the NCOs, the Gun Violence Suppression Division, community response teams, neighborhood safety teams and many others contributed to shooting reductions in every New York City borough.
Your officers took nearly 6,500 illegal firearms off our streets in 2023, and seized more than 13,000 and a half guns over the past two years. This intensive work against gun violence had ripple effects across other violent crime categories.
Murders, which had risen for four consecutive years before this administration took over, fell another 12 percent from 2022, marking the eighth lowest year since 1993. And with declines in major categories including robbery, burglary and grand larceny, we pushed overall crime down in 2023.
On top of that, crimes in our transit system declined another 2.6 percent compared to 2022, including an 8.2 percent drop for the last month of the year, extending the public safety gains we've made over the past 18 months in our country's largest and most traveled subway system. That is what we want to see.
And we are extremely proud of the work our officers do every day, but, of course, we're not finished. And we will never let up. Your cops continue to be out there in every neighborhood taking violent criminals off our streets. This relentless, intelligence‑driven work led to more than 53,000 major felony arrests in 2023, which is a 24‑year high.
So, here's what it means: in a year where major crime was down, major crime arrests were up by nearly 12 percent. You have to go back to 1999 to get a similar number, a year that had nearly 70,000 more major crimes reported than we had in 2023. Not only that, in 1999, we had about 6,000 more uniformed officers on the street than we have now. So fewer cops, more felony arrests and lower crime. That means our crime fighting is more focused, is more effective, and it's making our city safer.
But it also means your cops are in harm's way more than they have been in years. More arrests for violent crimes increased our interactions with violent criminals, and the result is a rise in assaults against our officers. This accounted for a significant portion of the increase in that felony crime category last year.
But the message is clear: New Yorkers will not stand for crime and violence anywhere in their city, and the NYPD will always be there for them making sure the safest big city in the nation keeps getting even safer. As we look ahead to 2024 and beyond, we know our department will face challenges — that is the nature of this job — but as always, your police department is prepared for anything; and with our team in place, we will meet every challenge head on.
But we also know that public safety isn't felt in a vacuum and that crime data is not the same as lived experience. So, we will continue building and strengthening relationships with the people we serve which is absolutely critical to everything we do.
It takes all of us working together to get it done, and together we will never stop fighting to make New York City better tomorrow than it is today. Now I'll turn it over to First Deputy Commissioner Tania Kinsella, who will get into some further details. Tania.
First Deputy Commissioner Tania Kinsella, Police Department: Thank you, commissioner. Good afternoon, everyone.  Violent crime and keeping all New Yorkers safe is the dedicated mission of the men and women in NYPD. Our officers are always on the ground working hard to build trust and strengthen relationships in every community that we serve.
As a result of this approach, the NYPD is one of the most — or, "is" — the most restrained police department in the nation. In 2023, the NYPD responded to more than five and a half million calls for service in a city where its 8.3 million residents and millions more are traveling each day to work or visiting.
In all of those millions of engagements between the public and the police — a police department with 34,000 officers — there were only 30 times adversarial situations where officers had to fire their gun in 2023. That's six fewer times than 2021, that's 10 fewer times than 2022.
This means that when someone calls 911 in New York City, more than 99.9 percent of the time there is no shooting by police. This is due to our continuous in‑service training that focuses on enforcement encounters which teaches our officers de‑escalation techniques and other alternatives than using force; and, our detailed use of force policy holds each one of us accountable for our decisions and our actions.
As we look forward to 2024, the NYPD will continue to evolve and build upon this foundation to ensure that policing in New York City remains equitable, just and where we will never sacrifice transparency and public safety. Thank you. I will now turn it over to Chief LiPetri.
Chief Michael LiPetri, Crime Control Strategies, Police Department: Thank you, commissioner. Just to highlight some of the data that the police commissioner and the mayor spoke about; and obviously, when we talk data, we're talking victims. So, when you look at the 409 less victims of major crime in New York City, a lot of people might say, well, that's not that significant. Well, let me just take you back just a year or two ago.
For the first six months of 2022, New York City saw 17,000 more victims of major crime. For the first six months of this year, we also saw a small increase of about 800 victims. But for the last six months of this year, we have over 1,200 less victims of major crime. The mayor talked about 416 less victims of shooting violence in New York City. I'll just take you back two years: 726 less victims for shootings; 2020, 719 less victims of shootings.
Talk about gun arrests. We also, when we talk about gun arrests, we always talk about the flow of guns into New York City. Well, you know how you disrupt the flow of guns into New York City? You have the fourth consecutive year of the highest number of gun arrests since 1996. That's how you disrupt the flow of guns in New York City.
Robberies, 52 percent. Been looking at this for a long time, 52 percent of robberies have an arrest or have somebody that is wanted this year. The NYPD made over 11,000 robbery arrests. You've got to go back 12 years to have a higher number of robbery arrests.
Burglaries, 2,000 less burglary victims. We could times that probably by four or five. We've got about 1,000 residential burglaries. We all know residential burglaries just don't touch one victim, it touches many. When you look at burglary arrests, though being down 2,000 victims, we have more arrests.
Shoplifting, something we've talked about for a long time, as we should. Steadfast, working with the stakeholders, analyzing, putting officers in business districts, in malls, around shopping malls. We saw a decrease of about 4,500 shoplifting complaints both on the misdemeanor side and the felony side. And what we also saw was an increase of over 3,000 arrests.
What we also saw with shoplifting is we had a 40 percent increase in the store calling the NYPD to report a theft. And that's what we've asked them to do. We can't help if we don't know about it, and that's what they've done. 40 percent might seem low to somebody, but this has been increasing year over year over the past three years, 40 percent of our shoplifting complaints have been cleared by an arrest.
We've asked our Detective Bureau, our detective squads, to take an active role not just in felony shoplifting, but also identify patterns of simple petty larcenies, though it's not simple to the store owner or store worker.
Things we struggled with last year. Felony assaults. When you look at the increase in felony assaults, it's really tied to two categories. Unfortunately, domestic violence, we saw an increase in felony assaults, but we did see over a 90 percent arrest to every felony assault with a domestic violence victim.
Assaults on police officers. We saw an increase of over 300. And why is that? Well, we talked about the engagement. When you have the engagement that we haven't seen in years and years, unfortunately, police officers get assaulted.
When you look at the data behind what happens to these individuals who assault police officers, working with the District Attorneys' offices, when you look at the arraignment, we are happy to see about 85 percent do get arraigned on a felony. What we're not happy to report is only about 8 percent of the arrest population for assault in New York City actually does any kind of jail.
When you look at pre‑criminal justice reform, that was over 20 percent. Who gets affected? The NYPD officer that's out there protecting the community. So, again, a lot of hard work, a lot of things that we still need to improve on.
Some of the highlights of how we reduced these victims was obviously substantial analysis of crime in New York City, putting officers in neighborhoods all across the city, thousands of officers on foot in neighborhoods protecting the community. Thank you. 
Question: Yes. I had a question about felony assaults against police officers. What are the raw numbers in terms of this year versus last year?
Chief LiPetri: Okay. I don't have the exact raw numbers, I can just tell you that we're up 350, but I will be able to get you that, no problem.
Question: This could be for Chief LiPetri. What are some of the areas across the five boroughs, specific precincts you've seen some of the crime numbers bucking these trends where you have more work to do in terms of shootings, felony assaults and homicides? And what types of things are the precinct commanders doing as a result?
Chief LiPetri: All right. So, when it comes to shootings, I can just say that 62 out of the 77 precincts saw a decrease in shooting incidents from last year.
And just to highlight some of the work being done. You know, the mayor spoke about it and police commissioner spoke about it. Every geographic borough, all eight patrol boroughs saw decreases in shooting incidents. Southern Queens, almost a 50 percent decrease in shooting incidents this year compared to last year. Also, the geographic borough of Queens, almost a 40 percent decrease in murders. Northern Brooklyn, 28 percent decrease in shootings.
And when you look at those areas that really had substantial decreases not in just shootings but in crime, again, we tie it to the precision policing model, and those are a lot of those areas of where we put officers starting in the beginning of May, the extra 1,000 that I'm talking about.
When you do an analysis of those areas that we put the officers into — and again, it wasn't just patrol officers, we put detective bureau personnel, intelligence officers, a lot of different layers — we saw almost a 40 percent decrease in those areas in shootings. We saw over 45 percent decrease in confirmed shots fired in those areas.
So, we tie it to a lot of different things. You know, we definitely look at what we analyze before the summer months when it's the toughest months out there, and we saw sharp decreases in those areas.
Question: I just wanted to see what you had to say about how this whole situation compares to before the pandemic, since we all know there was a significant spike in crime during the pandemic. So, I'm talking about how this compares to 2019. I did some math, and it looks like in many categories of the seven index crimes it's still above where it was in 2019. Let's talk about that a little bit, if you would.
Chief LiPetri: Yes. So, I'll just say this. You know, it's been talked about, what happened in 2020 with the change in the criminal justice process as far as the reform process.
And I'll say it again. NYPD agrees with a lot of the reforms, we just don't agree with as fast and as much as was done in 2020. And if you really start analyzing crime for the second part of 2019 when a lot of these reforms were already put in place, crime started going up six months prior to the actual reform of 2020.
So, I think when you look at who could be bail-eligible, let's just take, for instance, grand larceny of an auto. Right? You look at grand larceny of auto in New York City, you look at the arrest of grand larceny of auto in New York City. Only 25 percent of grand larceny autos this year arrestees could be eligible for a bail. And that's going back to the law that was rewritten just last year on [Harm v. Harm] or that person has an open felony. But though 25 are eligible for a bail, only 8 percent got a bail.
Then if you look at who's committing a GLA or getting arrested in New York City, 13 percent of our GLA arrests last year also got arrested for a robbery. When you look at who's getting arrested for a GLA, 30 percent of arrests last year already have been arrested for a robbery.
So, again, you have to look at a lot of different things. Things are a lot different going back to 2019. But if we're going to go back to 2019, you know, we talked about the shooting incidents, fourth best year in 30 years.
Question: Mr. Mayor, I wonder if I could ask you a question.
Mayor Adams: Yes.
Question: Through the third quarter of 2023, there's been a 41 percent increase in assaults on police officers compared to 2021. I wonder if you could comment about why it seems to be open season on police officers? What's changed in the city? And what you plan to do about it to protect the police force?
Mayor Adams: And I think the commissioner, you wanted to add something on that?
Police Commissioner Caban: Just going back on… 
Mayor Adams: And I'm going to go to you, Marcia.
Police Commissioner Caban: On your question. You have to remember that before this administration took over, we were up in crime over 40 percent. So, our officers are out there every day making a difference, and I have to sit here with our team and thank them for what they do every single day.
Mayor Adams: And that falls in line to your question, Marcia, and I've been saying this over and over again that there's just an erosion of expectation of authority and the right to authority. And just the simple interactions that police officers are responding to people from everything from quality of life to those who are committing serious crimes, this feeling that you don't have to respect the authority of the city.
I'm sure if you were to do an analysis on some of our educators, I speak with them and they tell me that some of the lack of authority, respect for authority in our schools. So, there's just this attitude of a small number of people who are repeated offenders that believe that they don't have to live in a city of order. They believe they can do whatever they want, and who's the person telling them that, no, you can't do this, this is something that's not acceptable in our city? It is the men and women who are police officers.
And then you're dealing with, you know, we have a real, you know, some of the laws that people believe they can do these assaults. I think Chief LiPetri laid it out. When you do these assaults and you're out the next day and you do them again. Sometimes we have a crime, an assault on a police officer, and I will tell the commissioner, can you send me, let me look at their rap sheet, and you'll just see there's a pattern here.
Question: So, are you really talking about laws that are passed by the legislature in Albany, laws that are passed by the City Council in New York City that are contributing to this sense that it's okay to assault a police officer, the person who is trying to establish order in the city?
Mayor Adams: Well, I think it's more than that, and it's not an indictment on every councilmember and every lawmaker, et cetera. I speak with the chair of the Public Safety Committee in the City Council who is a strong believer in supporting police, I speak with my colleagues in Albany and the Senate.
The narrative of our city is hijacked by a numerical minority. I keep saying this over and over again. They are this small group of people that are trying to implement rules that have been implemented in other cities, and we see the result of those cities. And I am saying to New Yorkers and I'm saying to lawmakers who have a common sense approach, we cannot allow these rules to come into our city.
And one of the parts of this philosophy that they have is that we don't hold people to a high accountability when they assault law enforcement agencies. Probation, parks enforcement, correction officers. You know, you look at the erosion that we're telling these men and women who place themselves on the frontline that if you are assaulted or harmed that the person is not going to be held accountable.
Question: So, just a follow‑up question. So, are you basically saying that the way to deal with this numerical minority is for you and others to campaign against these people to prevent them from getting elected so that the majority rules as opposed to minority rules?
Mayor Adams: Yes, I think New Yorkers are at a crossroads. And I'm glad you're asking this question, because I see it every day. New Yorkers are at a crossroads. I think there's a lot of apathy, a lot of people don't believe that their vote matters, and they're able to understand the connection between who's in office and how it impacts your quality of life.
And I think New Yorkers are going to really regain who we are as New Yorkers. The everyday working class person that wakes up that takes that subway system to work, that wants their child to be in their school safe, that is who I represent.
And we need to start asking this small group of people in the city… And they're the same people. I mean, we see them over and over again. I mean, they introduce the same bills over and over again. Like, I find it astonishing that we have a public advocate who pushed for this police bill. He lives in a fort. He lives in a fort. He doesn't take the subway. So to be able to advocate to erode the ability of police to do protection when you have an entire army protecting your family and you drive around with police protection. And I don't know when the last time he was on the subway system.
Question: So, are you going to campaign against these people?
Mayor Adams: No, I think these people have to make a determination of what types of rules they want in their city. Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge today, whoever didn't. Go look at that Brooklyn Bridge right now. That Brooklyn Bridge is representative. That's a symbol of what I believe our city should look like that our police are doing.
That Brooklyn Bridge today that's clean, that's clear, that does not have people lined up on both sides that are selling every and anything, that's a symbol to me. When you ask me what do I believe our city represents, the Brooklyn Bridge is. Today's Wednesday. Monday that Brooklyn Bridge looked like what other cities looked like. Today, that Brooklyn Bridge looks like what New York City is going to look like.
And there are those who are saying, we want to turn that Brooklyn Bridge back. And that's where New Yorkers need to ask, that's what I'm saying to New Yorkers, do you want a city where people are putting on a tent in front of your home? Do you want a city when you come out with your children, that someone is injecting themselves with drugs on your stoop? Do you want someone defecating in your backyard, on your school ground? Do you want someone riding a scooter up and down the block and don't even care if they're on the sidewalk or not? Do you want someone blasting music in front of your home? You want someone playing dice in front of your home, someone doing robberies and they're out the next day?
That's the question that I'm asking. And you know, I'm not unclear. You know, I've been clear from the beginning: I protect working people in this city that they're not victims of crimes, and that's what this commissioner and this team has done.
Chief John Chell, Patrol, Police Department: All right, so I'm going to talk about… Good afternoon, Happy New Year, everybody.
I'm going to talk about quality of life enforcement, quality of life enforcement in the city. Just in terms of summonses being written by our officers out there, summons being written in terms of what the public wants, drinking in public, urination, bike on sidewalk, reckless driving, illegal scooters not registered. We have a 75 percent increase in those type of summonses. That's quality of life enforcement. That's what our cops are doing.
In terms of the number one complaint we get citywide, the illegal mopeds, motorcycles, ATVs, unregistered, hurting people. We've confiscated, along with those bikes, we're going to add on to this number the ghost cars, the paper plates and the plate covers. We've taken about 27,000 off the street this year.
When you combine that with last year's efforts that we kind of got started late in the summer, we've got 45,000 of these vehicles taken off the street. And there's still work to be done, because when you look at crime patterns, it's a crime that occurs by the same person or persons, more than twice, we have an increase of 97 percent. Okay, so how do we know it's working in some parts? We have a 69 percent decrease, a 69 percent decrease in people calling and reporting this illegal activity, so it's working. 
Talk about smoke shops, another complaint we get often. Between the sheriff's efforts with us, we visited over 3,000 smoke shops and effected over 400 arrests. With the help of our Narcotics Detective Bureau, 194 search warrants conducted in these smoke shops for illegal drugs and marijuana being sold. Nuisance abatement. In 2022, I think we had one submittal for a nuisance abatement, now we're over 500. We've closed down about 50 stores, another four and change are still pending in levels of nuisance abatement.
Let's put some numbers on what the sheriff gave me. In terms of value of illegal paraphernalia seized out of smoke shops — the 2,400 smoke shops we currently have in this city — $26 million in illegal paraphernalia seized. $52 million in summonses issued. The efforts by the sheriff and us riding shotgun with the sheriffs and other police agencies are really getting after smoke shops, a big quality of life issue for the city.
Let's talk about the homeless, when the mayor took over, one of his key initiatives. This year, our Homeless Encampment Task Force, we cleaned up over 5,300 encampments. Now, I don't see a lot of them anymore and I'm sure you don't. We've had a 30 percent reduction in calls from the public about encampments, so it's working, quality of life.
Illegal vending, counterfeit property being sold from our business improvement districts, our Canal Streets, or Times Square, we've done dozens of operations and seized a street value of over $220 million in counterfeit illegal vending.
So, these are quality of life complaints that we receive constantly. These were our number one complaints. As I clearly just demonstrated to all of you, we're addressing that. Just want to get that out in terms of quality of life enforcement.
Question: Chief LiPetri alluded to this and I think the mayor and the police commissioner also talked about the increase that is persistent in grand larceny auto. If you're a working person in the city, you drive to work, you lose that car, essentially you're screwed, to put it bluntly. What initiative is the department going to have going forward into 2024 to tackle this issue of grand larceny auto?
Mayor Adams: Before we answer that, because what you said is so important. This is another city in America. This is another city in America. This is what I saw when I was driving around the city, January 1st, 2022. This is an example of another city in America. This is what you threw up your hands, fires burning on the street. Children out here. There are no toilets. Go look at other cities and look at what we inherited when I put in place our Homeless Encampment Task Force. You don't see this in New York.
And there are those who say I'm harsh because I don't allow this to exist. That's what I'm fighting against. Do you want this in front of your house? Do you want this in front of your house? Do you want your children to see this? Is this what you want your children to see? Not while I'm mayor. It's not going to happen. 
Chief LiPetri: Just to highlight some of your question. When you look at the increase in motor vehicle theft in New York City, it's approximately another 2,000, about 2,000 steals, that's all attributed basically to the Kias and Hyundais. We see an increase of over 2,100 Kias and Hyundais. That's an over 300 percent increase from last year.
And then when you factor in the mopeds and the motorcycles where we have an increase of about 1,000, we obviously analyzed it. We've obviously leveraged the auto industry when it comes to those types of vehicles through our legal, through the mayor's office. We've had conversations with them about the software issue.
We also have tracked where these vehicles in New York City are mostly registered via a ZIP code, and we used crime prevention to go out to those residents, to go out to registered owners' residents to speak to them about getting the software upgrade, so there's a crime prevention component.
We've tasked some of the best officers out there that have done very good work. We've moved them into specific auto larceny units mainly in the Bronx and Queens North where we see a majority of auto thefts. We've tasked our Detective Bureau to be more active in the investigations of auto theft.
Years before the Detective Bureau was a very tight process of when they could investigate auto theft. We've loosened that process where if we see a video or things of that nature, traceable property inside the vehicle, the Detective Bureau, precinct detective squads will then take a case on that.
We've analyzed where these vehicles are being stolen from, obviously, but also where they're being recovered. We see more and more vehicles being recovered outside of New York City in places like New Jersey and Westchester.
We've also seen an uptick in organized crews, so we've tasked our Auto Crime Division to really focus on the organized crews of auto theft, where they haven't done that so much in the past, they're doing that more and more.
So again, that's just some of the highlights of what we're doing to combat auto theft. And you know, it is a struggle, but again, there has to be some kind of consequence when you get arrested in a stolen vehicle. Arrests for grand larceny of auto were up 50 percent this year compared to last year.
And like I already spoke about it, on the surface, it is not a bail‑eligible offense. There are small times that you can be bail‑eligible, but it's not being used for any kind of consequences right now in New York City. And the people that are getting arrested for grand larceny are committing robberies in New York City. 
Question: Mr. Mayor, for you, to follow up on quality of life pertaining to shoplifting. You know, that affects everybody, the customer, the worker, the manager. When will there come a time when Duane Reade and CVS doesn't have to lock everything up anymore?
Mayor Adams: That's, you know, the mere fact that they do is a state of surrender. And we did our shoplifting task force, held it at Gracie Mansion. I sat in, the AG sat in, the DA sat in and we did a full frontal assault. Chief LiPetri, do you want to go into some of the shoplifting stuff there?
Chief LiPetri: Yes, Mr. Mayor. So, 25,000 shoplifting arrests in New York City this year, 25,000. You know, again, an increase of over 3,000 last year. I'm part of the mayor's task force with shoplifting. We've had great conversations with stakeholders whether it be Rite‑Aid, CVS, Target, at the highest levels. I know the police commissioner has been at those meetings; obviously, I've been at those meetings.
We've identified corridors where we see very dense shoplifting crime. And what we've done, and this is something where we really have not done this over the past few years, we always identify, not always, but we really identify, you know, where can saturated foot patrols affect communities, and we really look at a lot of street crime, shootings, robberies, things of that nature.
Well, we changed our tactic this year and we put them in business districts: East Fordham Road in the 46, Church Avenue in the 67, Pitkin Avenue in the 73, areas that you might not see officers there for retail theft, but that's why they were there. The holiday season, officers in and around six major malls, inside and outside around the parking, around the parking areas.
We've asked our crimes against property teams to focus on organized retail theft. We've asked our intelligence officers, our field officers to identify what are they doing with the property, and we've had a lot of good intel and we've done very well this year with dismantling some of these organized crews.
Question: Are those like warehouses, where they're storing, and people are going shopping.
Chief LiPetri: Some are [inaudible], some are warehouses, some are simple bodegas on a block where they're selling property that was stolen from a CVS. And we identify those, and a lot of those are some of the 400 pending nuisance abatements that Chief Chell talked about.
So, there's different layers to shoplifting, but again, our response times are the best that they've been, our clearance rates are the best that they've been. But I will tell you, we have a lot of work to do. We will continue to suppress shoplifting in New York City.
Question: ...housing and transit. A lot of New Yorkers I speak to still, despite the numbers, still feel like they are afraid to take the subway. I was wondering if you could just talk about [inaudible] crime [inaudible] perception versus reality on that? [Inaudible] despite this achievement that people still feel… 
Chief Michael Kemper, Transit, Police Department: So, look, we were here a year ago in this room when we were recapping 2022 with crime in the subway system, and we recognized clearly that 2022 was a challenging year for us in relation to crime and disorder in the subway system. We ended the year, you know, 30‑plus percent up in crime in 2022. And we sat here and we spoke to you and to everyone about what our plans was going to be moving forward into 2023.
We touched upon Mayor Adams' Subway Safety Plan. We talked about the Cops, Cameras and Care Program. We spoke about what that means to public safety in the subway system. Tremendous investments, allowing us to deploy upwards of 1,000‑plus additional cops in the subway system each day assigned to platforms, mezzanines, on trains. We said public safety was going to be our top priority moving forward in the subway system in 2023.
And as I sit here now, I'm pleased to report that the hard work of the men and women of the NYPD coupled with this administration's investments have paid off. This year's end of crime briefing, it's different than last year's versus 2022. This year's picture is much better when it comes to public safety in the subway system.
Crime in the New York City subway system in 2023 was down 2.6 percent, which represents 60 less crime victims, major crime victims, versus the prior year. When looking at the crimes in the subway system, homicides are down 50 percent this year versus last year. Robberies decreased just about 11 percent, 66 less robbery victims in the subway system. Shooting incidents decreased 33 percent. Grand larcenies decreased.
When looking at crime in total, I think it's important to mention, we averaged, in 2023, 6.2 major crimes a day in the subway system. Just think about that: the largest, most complex, most populated subway system in this nation.
You know, in relation, how did we get there? Our cops. But you're looking at what we've done. You spoke about crime perception, and perception is real to many, and a lot of that has to do with what's reported and what our riders see sometimes in certain stations when they go in. It's real, acts of lawlessness: public urination; smoking, for example; fare evasion. We spoke about that. We recognized it and we said we were going to be focused on that, and we were.
Overall arrests last year in the subway system increased by 53 percent, 4,700 more arrests in 2023 versus 2022. TAB summonses, those are the summonses that are issued mostly for quality of life offenses, the offenses that really weigh heavily on our riders' minds, what they see, acts of lawlessness, up 48 percent. 172,000‑plus TAB summonses this year, 56,000 more than 2022.
Criminal court summonses, same thing, 51 percent increase. Fare evasion contacts, arrests or summonses for fare evasion were up 47 percent this year versus last year. 132,000‑plus either arrests or summonses for fare evasion last year in the subway system. Just to put that in perspective, that's 42,000 more in 2023 than the year prior.
When it comes to ridership, weapons up, every weapon category, guns, knives. And when it comes to ridership in 2023, it's pretty clear, the subway system is back. We're averaging just about four plus, 4.1 million riders a day in the subway system. Just to put that in perspective, that's more riders a day in a subway system than the entire population of Los Angeles in a day. Think about that.
Chief Martine Materasso, Housing, Police Department: Thank you. So, the housing bureau has taken a very major and active role in reducing the shootings as well, as Chief LiPetri spoke of. Housing Bureau accounts for 28 percent of the reduction of shooting incidents within housing itself. That's a raw number of 64, down 161 versus 225. And the same as Chief LiPetri spoke of, across the board all three of our boroughs are all down with Brooklyn leading 57 versus 99. They're down 42 percent.
And just to touch on the crime, although we finished four out of the seven major categories with increases just showing slightly in felony assaults, burglaries and GLAs, which is our largest increase, we've seen in the current 28‑day we're down in felony assaults a little bit over 1 percent and down in GLAs a little bit, 4.5 percent. So, we're heading in the right direction, and we can hope to continue this into 2024.
Mayor Adams: Crime is down. Jobs are up. Tourists are back. Our city is back.
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