A new batch of those notoriously-reliable NYPD crime statistics were released this past week, and the scientists at the News have crunched the numbers and compiled a list of some of the more interesting pieces of data. And while it may seem obvious that Saturday would be the most deadly day of the week (89 murders this year), did you know that Tuesday (58 murders) is the safest day of the week?
Other factoids, tidbits and breakdowns: two out of every three people (sixty-seven percent) killed this year were black, while twenty-five percent were Hispanic and only four percent were white. Forty-nine percent of all murder victims are involved with drug use and/or drug sales, while fifty-three percent of murder suspects are. The deadliest time of day is between 3 and 4 a.m. (41 murders), and the deadliest precinct is Brooklyn's 75th in East New York (with 30 murders). As it stands now, the homicide is at 476 through Tuesday; there were 470 in all of 2009, which was the all-time lowest amount since reliable record-keeping began in 1962.
The NYPD say they are focused on targeting the drug trade. Rev. Al Sharpton is more perturbed by the larger drug culture, and was upset about the racial skewering of the murder rate: "The most racially biased thing we could do would be to act like it's normal - that we are helpless to change things. We are not. But we need to change the culture. It breaks my heart when I see kids wearing Scarface T-shirts instead of Malcolm X T-shirts. That's making the culture of dealing drugs acceptable."
