By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2025-01-07 16:33:02 | Updated at 2025-01-08 14:54:08
22 hours ago
New York City saw a “staggering” 146.5% increase in felony assault re-offenders over six years, the Big Apple’s top cop said — as felony assaults reached a high in 2024 that had not been seen in two decades.
Felony assaults surged to 29,417 in 2024, with NYPD brass blaming liberal Albany law enforcement reforms fueling a “revolving door” of justice that sees accused criminals back on the street and free to commit more crimes.
“That is what we’re up against,” Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told reporters at a briefing Monday. “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.”
Tisch said the spike in violence was “driven by assaults on our officers, domestic violence and stranger attacks.”
In 2024, the Big Apple also saw a 61.3 % increase in repeat burglary offenders, and 83.3 % spike in robbery recidivists, Tisch said.
She also pointed to recidivists – those who commit the same crime at least three times in one year – for driving the overall surge assault numbers.
The 29,417 felony assaults reported in the five boroughs between January and December of 2024 represented a 5 % from the 28,003 tallied by the department in 2023.
“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,” Tisch said. “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.”
Mayor Eric Adams expressed a smilar sentiment.
“These numbers here of recidivism clearly show that there are far too many people who are repeatedly committing the same crime, not in a lifetime, in one year,” he said. “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?” she said. “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.”
Tisch singled out 57-year-old parolee Gary Worthy, accused of shooting and injuring both an NYPD cop and a 26-year-old woman – an innocent bystander – during an attempt to rob a Queens bodega.
The injured officer, 7-year veteran Rich Wong, returned fire, fatally striking Worthy.
“The shooter had 17 prior arrests — 17 of which happened when he was out on lifetime parole, including arrests for robbery, burglary and menacing within the past year,” Tisch said. “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.”
Another recidivist whose alleged crimes sparked outrage in the city last year was Franz Jeudy, 33, accused of sucker-punching Brooklyn school bus aide, Dulche Pichardo, 57, in the face as she walked home in late March.
Jeudy has a rap sheet of similar sucker-punch assaults to his name and a long history of mental illness, sources told The Post at the time.
Additionally, Jonathan Davalos, 26 — charged with severely slashing an MTA worker at a Brooklyn subway station in October — has a long rap sheet that includes an eerily similar assault on a transit worker and another knifing in 2021.
Despite the surging recidivism, officials touted that the Big Apple overall saw about a 3% decrease in major index crime last year, with all but two of the seven felony categories — felony assaults and rapes — seeing fewer occurrences.
Murders were down 3.6%, robberies dropped by 2.3%, burglaries dipped 5.7%, grand larcenies saw a 5% decline, and grand larceny auto plunged by 10.3 percent.
“This translates to 3,662 fewer incidents of major crime last year than the year before,” Tisch said. “And these are not just numbers.”
“We’re talking about thousands of people who were not injured, abused, attacked or targeted by criminals.”
Rapes were up by a startling 18.9% last year — with 1,748 such crimes reported compard to 1,470 in 2023.
“For rape in particular, there are two things to note,” Tisch said. “The first is that starting on Sept.1 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,” she added. “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.”
Additional reporting by Craig McCarthy
