NYC is the Safest City, Nyah, Nyah, Nyah

The NYPD may be slashing its work force, but the FBI announced that NYC is once again the safest big city, while crime is rising in other cities across the country. Some stats for 2005: Overall crime dropped 4.3%, versus a 1.1% drop across the country, and violent crime fell 1.9% in NYC, versus a 2.5% increase in the country. But officials didn't want to make any promises about "lowest murder rate ever," as the murder rate seems to be creeping up slightly (though it'll still be near historical lows). What we're curious about is why, for its crime stats story, the Daily News used a photo of the city skyline with the World Trade Center in it.

Anyway, nine more dangerous cities than the us: Dallas, Detroit, Phoenix, San Antonio, Houston, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, San Diego, and LA.

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By Jen Chung in News on June 13, 2006 5:19 PM

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hoogoo

Except the guy was 5'5" tall. The only place that guy could be a bouncer is Chuck-E-Cheese.

troy

Subway stabbing today in Upper West Side. As usual: "The attacker was described as a black man in his 20's about 5 feet 5 inches tall, dressed all in black and wearing a baseball cap. He was still at large last night."

Can't they just round up all the black bouncers?

Brouhaha

"...ALL media orgs need to get an intern or somebody to look though their photos and cull out the ones with the WTC." --Anya, previous post

"As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number of the Times had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in its stead. This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound tracks, cartoons, photographs-to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. En this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary. In no case would it have been possible, once the deed was done, to prove that any falsification had taken place. The largest section of the Records Department, far larger than the one in which Winston worked, consisted simply of persons whose duty it was to track down and collect all copies of books, newspapers, and other documents which had been superseded and were due for destruction. A number of the Times which might, because of changes in political alignment, or mistaken prophecies uttered by Big Brother, have been rewritten a dozen times still stood on the files bearing its original date, and no other copy existed to contradict it. Books, also, were recalled and rewritten again and again, and were invariably reissued without any admission that any alteration had been made. Even the written instructions which Winston received, and which he invariably got rid of as soon as he had dealt with them, never stated or implied that an act of forgery was to be committed; always the reference was to slips, errors, misprints, or misquotations which it was necessary to put right in the interests of accuracy." --1984, George Orwell

Anya

That skyline shot was filed by someone lazy who didn't care and just used the first "new york" photo in their database or however they categorize photos for use. Further evidence that ALL media orgs need to get an intern or somebody to look though their photos and cull out the ones with the WTC.

Toby

First off I don't recall seeing the old skyline shot in the print version of the Daily News.

I got assaulted in one of the nine more dangerous cities (I was on a bike and the helmet took most of the force of impact), I am not going to say which to be polite and not to embarass the police department there, as when I reported it to the nearest cop who to be rather blunt was quite rotund and more intrested in finishing his box of powdered doughnuts than doing his job. Say what you will about the NYPD, they are more professional than that.

Ana Ng

Wouldn't it be incredible irony if after posting "nyah, nyah, nyah" the writer was stabbed or robbed or mugged or something tomorrow?

hmm

Here are a couple of articles about the NYPD's CompStat program -- they're getting a little out of control with the numbers to the point that the program is commonly referred to ConStat or FudgeStat by the rank and file.

http://www.nysun.com/article/33736

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16760378&BRD=2731&PAG=461&dept_id=574908&rfi=6

The Voice also had a piece last year (I think) written by one of their staffers who was mugged. His assault and robbery wound up becoming something to the effect of "you fell down a flight of stairs and lost your wallet, phone, etc." by the time the precinct cops were done filing his complaint.

The only crime you really can't fudge numbers with is homicides. The medical examiner (obviously) is keeping their own stats as well, which keeps the NYPD honest. But everything else is fair game to be downgraded to a lesser crime to keep the serious stuff looking less better.

And while it's good for the murder and violent crime rate to go down in NYC, you see it increasing in many parts of upstate and neighboring areas in the tri-state. The bad guys aren't going away, but just moving to Philly, Bridgeport, Albany, Utica, etc.