Transcript: Mayor Adams and NYPD Commissioner Tisch Announce Crime Down in 2024

January 6, 2025

Watch video here at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z666Bz_wPCw

Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch: Good afternoon, everyone. There are plenty of details to discuss in the 2024 crime data, so we'll get right into it. Overall, index crime in 2024 was down under Mayor Adams' leadership, with reductions in five of the seven major crime categories, including murder, robbery, burglary, grand larceny and auto theft. This translates to 3,662 fewer incidents of major crime last year than the year before. And these are not just numbers. 

We're talking about thousands of people who were not injured, abused, attacked or targeted by criminals. And notably, homicides, which came in at 377 victims last year, have declined for three years in a row and are now at a five year low. Our work against gun violence reduced both shooting incidents and shooting victims for the third straight year. The result was the fourth lowest year for shooting incidents citywide in the CompStat era, stretching all the way back to 1993. 

And in 2024, shootings in the geographical borough of Brooklyn were the lowest they've ever been since CompStat began tracking them. Certainly, some of these gains can be attributed to the work of the women and men of the NYPD, who have taken an unprecedented number of guns off our streets since Mayor Adams came into office in January 2022, nearly 20,000 of them. That's approximately 3,000 more guns off our streets than the three previous years. 

Major crime in public housing was down 4.5 percent for the year. And major crime in our transit system was down for the second straight year in 2024, decreasing 5.4 percent compared to 2023. We are now about 13 percent below pre-pandemic index crime levels in our transit system. I want to be very clear. The subways will always be a bellwether for the perception of public safety in New York City. Declining crime numbers are significant, but we still must do more because people don't feel safe in our subways. 

Effective this week, I've directed that we move more than 200 officers onto the trains to do specialty train patrols. And I have further directed that we deploy more officers onto subway platforms in the 50 highest crime stations in the city. It's all part of a strategy to refocus our subway efforts to the places where the crime is occurring. We know that 78 percent of transit crime occurs on trains and on platforms. And that is quite obviously where our officers need to be. This is just the beginning. 

This month, we will roll out substantial additional improvements to our transit deployments to be even more responsive to the terrifying acts of random violence we have seen recently. I will have more to say about that soon. Despite the gains made against crime in 2024, there were two index categories up last year, rape and felony assault. For rape in particular, there are two things to note. The first is that starting on September 1st of 2024, the law changed to rightfully redefine and broaden what constitutes rape in New York State. 

Also notably in 2024, nearly half of our reported rates were domestic violence related. And this share is up from recent years when it hovered at about 35 percent. We know that rape has historically been underreported and we encourage all victims to come forward. The other major crime that increased in 2024 is felony assault, which was driven by assaults on our officers, domestic violence and stranger attacks. 

Now I'm going to address the current trajectory for index crime. And the headline here is that we are trending quite well. Overall, index crime in the three months in the last three months of 2024 was down 8 percent, led by reductions of 12.1 percent in grand larceny, 13.1 percent in auto theft and 13.4 percent in robbery. This past December, major crime declined in every patrol borough and was down 15.5 percent overall. And in the first week of January, major crime is down 20 percent citywide. Crime reduction in 2024 was also paired with significant increases in engagement by our officers, with major felony arrest reaching a 26 year high. 

I want to be very clear. The crime reductions we saw last year were achieved against all odds and are entirely attributable to the hard work and the grit of New York's finest. The deck has been completely stacked against our cops. And there is one glaring issue. Surging recidivism. If you compare 2024 to 2018, we see a 61.3 percent increase in people arrested for burglary three or more times in the same year. That increase is 83.3 percent for robbery. And when we look at felony assault, an index crime that was up in 2024, that increase is a staggering 146.5 percent. That is what we're up against. 

And we know why. The key driving factor is the revolving door of our criminal justice system, created in large part by legislative changes that took effect in 2020. Case in point, last month, a career criminal robbed a Queens deli at gunpoint before shooting and injuring a responding NYPD officer and a 26 year old innocent bystander. The shooter had 17 prior arrests, 17 of which happened while he was out on lifetime parole, including arrests for robbery, burglary and menacing within the past year. Let me repeat that. He was arrested and then released over and over again while on lifetime parole. 

This is evidence of a broken system, one that doesn't put the rights and needs of victims first. And the problem is compounded when you look at misdemeanors. They are up 20 percent compared to 2018. But importantly, at the same time, for these very same crimes, the rates of decline to prosecute are up a staggering 31 percent. And the rates of bail set are down 54 percent. Imagine how disheartening it is for our cops to be out there arresting the same people for the same crimes in the same neighborhoods day after day. And how scary it is for New Yorkers to see the same person who victimized them one day walking the streets the next. There are no mental gymnastics required here. When you see toothpaste behind lock and key at a local pharmacy or public urination or people shooting up on the corner with impunity, it doesn't have to be this way. New Yorkers demand and deserve better. In the meantime, despite these headwinds, the NYPD will continue to innovate. Chief Lipetri and I are both data driven people. And now we are going even deeper into the numbers. 

When the CompStat era began, we thought about crime at the precinct level. But we know that a small percentage of people in a small number of areas are responsible for a large portion of violent crime in our city. So now we're in the process of developing CompStat books based on zones. Specific segments of neighborhoods, blocks, and even certain streets where we see spikes in violence and disorder. In a precinct like the 8-4 in downtown Brooklyn, which does not have a significant amount of violent crime, precise zone-based deployments are very effective. 

The data showed that nearly 30 percent of the precinct's major crime complaints stem from one small area of the command. In particular, the Fulton Street corridor in and around the courts. A disproportionate number of retail thefts were also reported along this corridor. So about six weeks ago, we dedicated extra resources there to combat it. Since then, theft in that zone is down, arrests are up, and the residents and businesses there are happy to see their cops on the corner. The success will be repeated citywide. And right now, about 650 additional officers per day are deployed to high crime zones across the five boroughs. A number that extends to 1,000 officers per day in the summer months. And in these areas, we've seen reductions in index crimes and shootings, along with increases in gun arrests and overall arrests. 

It's clear that cops on patrol make our city safer, and the next step is getting more of them. Tomorrow, 624 additional police officers will hit the streets. Later this month, a new class of what is likely to be more than 1,000 recruits will enter the academy. The last time that this department hired such a big class was nearly a decade ago. These much-needed additions to our ranks are just the beginning. We are laser-focused on attracting and training new officers to join the greatest police department in the world. Before I conclude, I want to thank Mayor Adams for his unwavering support of the department and the women and men of the NYPD for their noble work over the past year. They should be incredibly proud to count themselves among New York's finest, and they will always have my gratitude, my appreciation, and my full support. 2025 is a new year with a renewed focus on strong ethical leadership and doing this job with honor and integrity. Thank you very much. Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Thank you so much, commissioner. If we could go back a few slides. Go back. Go back. Go back one more. It is clear perception always overrides reality. And when you looked at some of the horrific incidents that the commissioner talked about in these last few days, the average New Yorker would believe that they're living in a city that is out of control. That is not the reality. And we know that we are doing a good job in fighting crime, as the numbers would show. 

But we must deal with the perception that many New Yorkers feel. Quarter four, December, 15.5 percent decrease. Week one in January, 20.2 percent decrease. Are the police officers working? Felony arrests up 7.2 percent. Go forward one slide. Here's our fight. We said this over and over again. There are too many people who have made up their minds that they are going to inflict violence on innocent New Yorkers. 

Burglary, 61.3 percent. Individuals committing three or more of the same crime in one year. Three or more of the same crime in one year. Felony assault, 146.5 percent. Grand larceny, 71.2 percent. Auto theft, 118.6 percent. Robbery, 83.3 percent. Shoplifting, 64.2 percent. There are three components to the criminal justice system. Police officers are one part of the criminal justice system. When they do their job over and over again, and the other two aspects are not giving them the support that they need, it gives the impression that no matter what we do, we're never going to be able to stop the crisis. These officers are working. They are producing a qualitative product. But we need every part of the criminal justice system to play their role. 

And these numbers here of recidivism clearly shows that there are far too many people who are repeatedly committing the same crime, not in a lifetime, in one year. In one year, they are repeatedly going back out again. Do you know what that does to Ms. Jones on her way to school, and she was robbed on Monday, and she's walking down the block, and she sees the person that robbed her back out on the street robbing her neighbor? It destroys your feeling that your city is taking care of you. Police officers are, but the other aspects of the criminal justice system must do their job. 

I was clear from day one, not only on the campaign trail, but when I became mayor, the prerequisite to our prosperity is public safety, and I was committed to driving down crime. And we know in these last few weeks, there have been some horrific incidents that really left New Yorkers shaken and believing as though they can't be safe in their city. We're the safest big city in America. The numbers are clear. We're seeing what the numbers are showing us, what we can do. But we know we have to tackle that perception. And it starts with dealing with the real issue, mental health. People should not have the right to sleep on the street in tents when they need care. We're in court right now fighting that basic principle that there is nothing humane by allowing people to sleep on our subway systems and on our streets. We need help, and that help must come. 

My conversation with the governor this weekend, she's clear and focused that in her budget, she's going to include an aspect dealing with severe mental health. But let's go back to January 1st, 2022. We finished a year where there was 1,876 victims were shot and 1,562 shootings, and there were 488 people killed. But today, as I stand in front of you, living up to my commitment of ensuring that this city is the safest big city in America, we had 903 shootings last year, 377 homicides. From 488 back in 2022 down to 377, and from 903 shootings going from 1,562, almost cutting those shootings down almost in half. And the same with the number of victims as we move forward. We're trending in the right direction. This is a more than 42 percent reduction in yearly shootings and a 23 percent reduction in homicides since this administration began. But we didn't stop there. 6,100 guns off our streets last year alone. 20,000 illegal guns out of our neighborhoods since this administration took place. 

But we went into the crevices of those things that drive crime, not just in shootings, but we took 8,000 ghost cars and 27,000 ATVs and two-wheel vehicles off our streets, with a total number since this administration started of over 80,000 of these vehicles that were used in robberies, assaults, hit-and-runs, creating devastation in our city. But it was not only about fighting crime. Think about this. 4,000 protests with over 300,000 demonstrations. We had to ensure that people were allowed to protest peacefully without destroying property and without destroying our city, and these officers successfully carried that out. Then we went after the illegal shops. 

We stated, if you give us the power, we'll close them down. We closed over 1,300 illegal smoke shops in the city, put in place an initiative called Community Link, which brings multiple agencies as well as community partners together to address quality of life and public safety concerns. We want to do more, and we will do more. We're invested in upstream solutions like education, affordable housing, afterschool and holiday school programs, and early intervention. Our public safety strategy is working. It's not just the New York City Police Department. It is every agency in the city playing their vital role as we continue to ensure that crime trends downward in New York City. Overall index crime, as the commissioner mentioned, is down 15.5 percent in December, and December's crime reduction was the biggest single-month crime decrease since February 2021. That's since before we even came into office. 

With murders down, with robberies down 27 percent, these numbers reflect a crime in reduction, and we have just really started to roll out some of the new initiatives that Commissioner Tisch is clearly going to oversee to make sure that we continue to move crime in the right direction. And so we know how New York is filled. We know each time they hear of a terrible incident that takes place in the city, how it impacts them. Nothing is more horrific than watching a person burn to death on our subway system. We know how individuals feel when they're shoved to the tracks for no reason at all. 

We know how it impacts us. We know we have to continue to show the visible presence of the omnipresence of our men and women and their uniforms, but we are taking a proactive and a reactive approach. Men and women who wear the blue uniform and provide public safety, they are one part of every aspect of our criminal justice system. 

It is time for us all to understand we have a role together to ensure that this city maintains to be the safest big city in America. I join the commissioner in thanking the men and women of the New York City Police Department, and I thank her for her leadership on ensuring, as I expected, that we could do more, we could go further, and we could do better. We don't want to only be the safest big city in America. We want to be the safest city in America, and we could do that with the right leadership, the right commitment. We have the product in our men and women who provide safety every day, and now we're asking for all aspects of the criminal justice system to join us in this pursuit of ensuring New Yorkers are safe. Thank you very much.

Question: We understand there's possibly an overtime crunch within the NYPD. If you're scaling back on overtime, how can you cover places like the subway system?

Commissioner Tisch: With overtime, we are putting controls in place to make sure that we responsibly manage city resources. The controls that we have put in place will by no means affect our staffing on the New York City subway system. What we've done on the New York City subway system is we've put more officers on straight time as opposed to overtime. In that way, we have reduced the amount of overtime we are spending on the subways.

Question: Two quick questions on the crime numbers. The mayor just said that overall index crimes are down by 15 percent at least in December. You put up a slide, commissioner, that showed overall index crimes in the subway down, but by a much smaller percentage than what the mayor just said. So I have a question. How do they compare the overall? 

And then the larger question that everybody is going to be asking is simply that you know, you mentioned that there's a fear out there. How do you specifically, personally respond to people who say, oh yeah, I know the numbers are down, but I heard an incident. My friend said he saw somebody, a homeless guy urinating. What do you say to those people who they actually are safer, but they don't feel safer?

Commissioner Tisch: So let me start with the first part of the answer to your questions on the numbers. Last year, overall, index crime in New York City was down approximately 3 percent. In the subway system, index crime last year was down 5.4 percent. The point that the mayor and I were making earlier is that later in the year, our trajectory is actually quite good right now. Because, for example, the first month of February, we saw crime down 20 percent. December was a great month, and also really the past three months have been great months. 

As to the question on perception, I get it. I am a mother. I have parents and people I love walking around the streets of New York City. And what I can say is we have a several part strategy here. The first, as you heard me discuss, is we are hiring lots of cops. We're going to swear in 624 of them tomorrow and send them on their way onto the streets of the city. And then later this month, we are hiring the largest class that the department has hired in about a decade. And we are committed to finding and training talented, dedicated people who want to do the greatest job in the world. So that's important. We know that more cops works. We saw that in 2018, right after Commissioner Bratton hired a thousand additional cops. We had one of the safest years on record. And so that is definitely a part of the strategy. 

But we also see, you heard me talk about the zones. When we identify problematic zones based on our data, what do we do? We flood them with cops. And we see the crime in those zones come down. So I think the two things together, the hiring additional officers and then being more precise on our data where we're deploying our cops, those two things together are going to make a difference. And we know that because in the past they have made a difference.

Mayor Adams: And let's go back for something you said that's very important. You mentioned it, you probably don't even realize it. You said that people fear when they see public urination. We didn't pass a law that makes public urination no longer illegal. We have far too many people who are making decisions without understanding the impact on the ground. Ms. Jones, she does not want to come out of her house and see someone urinating publicly. Why did we make that illegal? That didn't come from the police department. It didn't come from City Hall. We are in court right now because we don't want our city to look like some of the cities were encampment– cooking on the streets. We cleaned up the encampments in the city. We're in court right now fighting because individuals are stating that they should have a right to sleep on the streets. We didn't pass a law that says people should have a right to sleep on the streets. 

There are decisions that are being made that are impacting on the quality of life. But New Yorkers are looking at police officers saying why are you allowing this to happen when police officers are not responsible for these laws that are being passed. We all must be on the same page. The desire of the public must match the desire of the laws that we're passing.

Question:So you mentioned a few measures that you think could continue to drive down crime in 2025. And I think we have a good idea of what you want with the involuntary commitments. There's a bill. There's legislation. The governor's on board. I was wondering can you give us any more details about discovery reform and what part of bail reform specifically you think would help changes there? 

For example, there was legislation introduced that would sort of tap the DA's access directly into the NYPD's database. Some people think that would speed up the discovery process. Would that do it for you? Are you looking for something else? And can you tell us what you're thinking about bail reform?

Mayor Adams: Yeah. And this is not about bail reform. I want to be very clear. Many of the initiatives that were pushed in bail was what I advocated for not only when I was 100 blocks in law enforcement but when I was a state lawmaker. This is about recidivism. We just looked at the chart that showed us there's a small pocket of people that are repeatedly committing crimes. The focus we're talking about is recidivism. People conflate that and start talking about bail. This is not about bail. This is not about bail reform. This is not about the advocacy of it. 

This is about recidivism. Going after those recidivists. And you saw the number of decline of prosecute. Those decline of prosecute, those are not just cases of someone stealing an apple. These are serious crimes. Because the district attorneys have stated the discovery rules are making it too challenging and many of these cases are being dropped. So we need to look at the discovery and we need to look at recidivism of repeated offenders that in one year that are doing three or more crimes. Some of them are doing two or more crimes. They didn't even make the chart. So if we focus on recidivism and we focus on the needs that the DAs are requesting around discovery, we can have a major impact in pushing down crime.

Question: Is there a specific legislative way to get after recidivism? What are you thinking of as far as changes to rules or policy that could help with that?

Mayor Adams: Those are the conversations our team is going to Albany. When we go to Albany, we're going to sit down. We did a proposal last year and the year before that specifically talked about those repeated violent offenders. We're going to present that proposal again and show these numbers. These numbers don't lie. They're very clear. We're going to show these numbers and we're hoping that we can see that this is about recidivism that we're talking about.

Question: As far as the governor's push for that legislation on involuntary commitment, do you view that as a long-term solution [inaudible]?

Mayor Adams: There are several components that we need to look at when we talk about those who have severe mental health illness. And if you do an analysis of some of the stories that you've covered, you've noticed these random acts of violence that many of you have heard me talk about often, they fit into the categories of people with severe mental health issues. The individual who stabbed three people, the many cases of people being pushed on the subway tracks, of women being punched in the face. It's the same profile. 

And we need to focus on, number one, getting a comfort level in our mental health institutions of saying that we can't just continually turn people loose, give them medicine one day and turn them loose. That is just not working. So we have to change the mindset there. Dr. Katz from H&H, he understands that. 

We need to codify law to make it easier to do involuntary removals. And then we have to have a real conversation about the four jails that we are looking to build in the city, after closing Rikers. 51 percent of the inmates there have mental health issues, 18 percent to 20 percent have severe. We need a state-of-the-art facility that can house those with severe mental health or those who have outpatient treatment as well. So there needs to be a holistic, not a band-aid approach, to really address the severe mental health issues that we're seeing, plaguing not only the city, but plaguing the entire country.

It's a good starting point. What the governor is proposing, we need to see the final legislation to make sure that it's going to address this issue in a real way. But she sees this as being important. And my conversation with her this weekend shows that she's ready to move in that direction. 

Question: So just building on what Joe asked about, I know we've talked about discovery. It's something that DAs are uniformly in agreement with, that needing to get changed, this is why a case is being dismissed. But when it comes to these repeat offenders, these recidivists, the things that you're saying is driving crime throughout the city, all these different categories being up, all of those crimes, if they are recidivists, you can have bail set. 

So if it's not bail reform, what are you looking for here? Are you looking for if you're a repeat offender, you get arrested three times on the same charge or a lesser charge, are you being remanded? What are the options on the table here that you want to bring to Albany? And that's kind of where we're lacking specifics here.

Mayor Adams: And that's what we raised last year and the year before when we started seeing patterns of repeated offenders that is really impacting our ability to continue the success that we've witnessed. So we're looking at those, again, this is not really a complicated solution. We're looking at those who are repeatedly committing crimes. That is our focus. Our focus is to zero in on the numbers that the commissioner showed us in those various major crime categories, to zero in on them and hold them accountable for their actions. That is what we're stating. And we presented a proposal for two years in a row, and we're going to revisit this conversation when we return to Albany. 

Question: What is that proposal? 

Mayor Adams: We'll turn it over to you. I don't want to do anything that's going to jeopardize the negotiation we have with the state lawmakers.

Question: Maybe a follow-up, maybe not. Commissioner, when you do highlight the bail and the declination to prosecute, is it only a matter of state law matters, or do you think there's a lack of will on the part of any of the prosecutors? And a second question is, I know you don't specifically track stabbings, but do you have any way of articulating or understanding whether stabbings are up, down, sideways, any way you might be able to characterize that?

Commissioner Tisch: To answer the question on stabbings we actually have Chief Lipetri on the phone. So, chief, if you're there, can you speak to stabbings?

Michael LiPetri, Chief of Crime Control Strategies, Police Department: Yes, good afternoon. So, stabbings, we have seen an increase in stabbings, especially over the past three years, increases of year-over-year stabbings pretty much across the city. So, yes, the answer is yes, we do see an increase.

Question: Are you finding that the declination to prosecute are just a matter of state law, or is there a lack of will on the part of the district attorneys?

Commissioner Tisch: I need to look deeper into it. I don't want to assign one or the other, but certainly the decline to prosecute is a real issue for us, in particular as it relates to misdemeanors.

Question: Hello, Mr. Mayor and commissioner. I have two questions. I wanted to know where you plan to surge the cops. Is there any particular stations that you can speak to now about that detailed plan? We noticed that in Manhattan North, there's a couple stations there that seem to have high incidents. I also wanted to know, what is it about the surging of the cops, the 200 or so that you mentioned, different than what has been happening in the last year? I know that in the last two years, the governor has put National Guard in the subway systems. The mayor has put more police on the subway systems. But this perception of being unsafe in the system has continued and perpetuated. So I'm just wondering what makes this plan different than the previous one?

Commissioner Tisch: Sure, I can take that. It's where we're putting them in the system. So we know that 78 percent of crime in transit occurs either on the trains or on the platforms. And so that's where the majority of our cops need to be. Not in the mezzanines, not at the entrances. That's not to say that we won't have cops in the mezzanines and the entrances, but we need our cops assigned where the crime is occurring.

Mayor Adams: You said something, let’s be clear on. We did an initiative where the governor did the subway safety plan. We surged 1,000 cops in, I believe, in February. The goal was to bring down crime. We did that. So it was a successful plan. With her support, with the initiatives that were put in place, our goal was to bring down subway crime. I think we upped about 4.4, 4.5 million riders daily, and we probably have an average of six crimes that takes place in the subway system. So the goal of bringing down crime, we accomplished that. 

These high-profile random acts of violence have overshadowed our success. Where our subway system is on the numbers is an impressive place to be. We have been overshadowed by some of those actions. So now what the commissioner is stating and doing, now we have to deal with the perception. Watching that cop walk through the subway, seeing the presence, having the conductor announced as the police officer on the train, all of the things that will allow New Yorkers to feel the omnipresence and feel safe. 

But we don't want to walk out here stating the initiative we did with the governor with the subway safety plan failed. It did not. It brought down crime. It brought down robberies. I think the numbers of robberies is some of the lowest we've stated. Crime in the subway system, you've got to go back to 2009 if you remove the pandemic numbers out of the scene. So we were successful in our plan of making New Yorkers safe in the subway system. Now we must make sure, what the commissioner is doing, we need to make sure New Yorkers are feeling safe. That is what we have to match with the success we've done with the crime numbers.

Question: Commissioner, you've talked a number of times in recent weeks about the importance of the community, people seeing something, saying something, doing something. While the specifics are still not clear, there seems to be great concern in immigrant communities around the city about what President-elect Trump's deportation plans will look like. 

What sense are you getting, if any, at this point, I know it's still early, from your NCOs and precinct commanders about concerns raised by the people they're policing and are you worried that you're not going to get that type of cooperation either from victims willing to come forward or witnesses willing to come forward?

Commissioner Tisch: I want to be very clear that at the New York City Police Department, we follow the law. And the law is quite clear as it relates to civil immigration enforcement. We also are very focused on anyone in New York City who commits crime, and in particular, violent crime. And our efforts, including through, for example, our HSI task force, which focuses on violent crime, will continue and be redoubled.

Question: The other part of that, victims and witnesses who make arrests, find suspects–

Commissioner Tisch: And we've been very clear that we will follow the sanctuary city law in New York City.

Question: Commissioner, you spoke about surging officers onto the trains, and then you also spoke about overtime controls. Can you help us understand what the overtime controls will be? And why they weren't implemented in 2024?

Commissioner Tisch: I can't speak to the past, but what I can say about the present is we have articulated very clear overtime controls and reiterated that it is the responsibility of managers in this department and certainly executive leadership in this department to manage and focus on overtime. That is nothing new. And that is the case at any city agency that you work at. I dealt with the same issues at the Department of Sanitation. 

As far as the subway is concerned, we are surging officers. We are not increasing overtime spent in the subways. In fact, we're decreasing overtime spent in the subways by assigning officers to work in the subways on straight time as opposed to on overtime.

[Crosstalk.]

Mayor Adams: The question, I'm not understanding. You're saying–

Questions: The commissioner said that there weren't overtime controls in place before, and in 2024 we saw significant increases in overtime. Just wondering if you have any insight into why those controls weren't in place in 2024?

Mayor Adams: There's always overtime control. Can you do it better, similar to what the commissioner did in the Department of Sanitation? She brought down overtime to a substantial level. And I don't believe, as long as I was in the Police Department, in government, that the question does not come up about overtime, all the time. We were dealing with the unprecedented level of where we needed police officers. As I gave you the number of the number of protests we had, that impacted a great deal of people. 

And if you would interview the average cop, unlike when I was a cop, they don't want overtime. They want to go home. You know, these cops, their number one complaint is that, why do we have to do so much overtime? So it's not like cops are trying to get over on the system. We, after October 7th, we had a large number of protests. We still have our everyday terrorism threats in this city. The number of things our officers had to do as we boost up our manpower in the city, and as the commissioner is realigning what officers are assigned, it takes more than the normal hours of the day that these officers are assigned. And that's why we're changing many of our deployment strategies in what we're doing. 

Folks, let's be clear. We had a billion people use our subway system. A billion. With those billion, we dropped crime in the subway system by 5.4 percent. That's what we've done. You can't put a price on public safety. New Yorkers will be safe. That's my number one priority, and I'm going to continue to do that.

Question: Good afternoon. I want to talk about rapes. Rapes are up statewide and specifically in the Bronx. What is the city doing to address sexual violence in particular?

Commissioner Tisch: I discussed this a little bit in my remarks, but importantly we're seeing an increased percentage of the number of rapes in New York City be associated with domestic violence-related incidents, and that tells me that we have to, among other things certainly, take a good hard look for the first time in a while in our domestic violence efforts, and that is something that I am committed to doing. 

We've also done a great job, I think, over the past two years of addressing issues related to headcount in our special victims unit. I've just assigned 25 officers into that unit to make sure that we don't dip below the historically high numbers that we've seen, and we will continue to make sure that the case level in our special victims unit remains at under 60 cases as it is now.

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