Shooting Crimes Up Last Month

With statistics showing that the past four weeks have had higher numbers of shootings versus the same period last year, the Post give us the vintage headline: Slay It Ain't So. Shooting deaths were up 13% and shootings up 10%, driven by a 70% increase in incidents in the Bronx. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly tells the Post the "upturn is probably a 'spurt,'" and while the NYPD is "always concerned about shootings," he continued to emphasize that the city, overall, still has record low levels of crime: "We are still 20 victims below [the first eight months of] last year, which was a historically low year [with 571 killings]." Other stats for the past four weeks versus last year: Murders are down and subway crime is down 10%, though subway felonies are only down by one, perhaps because of the increased police presence. The four week period is from August 8 till September 4, a period that saw incredibly hot, uncomfortable weather; Gothamist wonders if the "spurt" is attributable to that.