It's become an expected refrian: Crime in the city is still dropping, down 6% from last year. The NY Post reports that murders are down 16% versus the same first-five-months-of-the-year period last year, while rape is down 8.8% and bank robberies have declined by almost 50% (except at Commerce Banks, probably). Also: 20% more DWI arrests, leading to 13% less DWI-related accidents and 25% less DWI-related deaths, and crime in "impact zones," the targeted neighborhoods, is down by almost a quarter.
And as the NYPD has made its presence more known, it turns out that complaints about police conduct have increased, thanks to 311. The Civilian Complaint Review Board says that complaints went up to 6,210 in 2004, versus 5,557 in 2003. Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne said that the rise is mostly a result of being able to easily report abuses, versus an actual rise in police abuse. Hmm, the Republican Convention was in 2004; there were thousands of arrests... Gothamist's math says it's very possible there was a rise in perceived police abuse, at the very least. But while last year's number sounds bad, there were about 7,000 complaints in 1984 and 1985.
Still of WNBC's coverage of the NYPD trying to apprehend a dog that ran away
