A 24-year-old man was attacked and robbed in Central Park on Sunday, part of a trend this year that has seen robberies double from 2013 levels.
“The 24-year-old man was near E. 102nd St. inside the historic Greensward at around 4 p.m. on an idyllic fall day when he was attacked from behind by the two men who punched and kicked him before stealing his Samsung Galaxy phone and $14, police said,” according to the Daily News.
Through September 28, there had been 16 robberies in the park, up from 8 in the same period last year. Overall, major crime is down 17% in Central Park this year, and robberies remain well below their mid-90’s levels: in 1993, for instance, 204 robberies were recorded.
Double the number of robberies as last year….
Demonizing the police, tying their hands, crying discrimination at every turn, all of which effects their ability to do their jobs can and will have a major upswing in crime in this City.
Call it what you want, defend him to you are blue in the face, but that is the new reality under DeBlasio.
This is not a new reality! And it’s been going on under many other mayors of this city long before DeBlasio! So no need for the blame game!
Thanks to Comrade DeBlasio, criminals no longer fear the police. They know they can’t be frisked so they carry guns. If they get caught, they just scream racism. Sorry folks, but your days of lounging in the park or running or playing will soon be over. We tried to warn you but you just wouln’t listen.
Jeff, you do realize stop-and-frisk still exists right? Perhaps you should actually KNOW about the subjects you’re trying to discuss
Why are you bringing up guns? I read the articles both here and in The Daily News and there is no mention of the assailants being armed. If they weren’t armed, how would stop and frisk have prevented this? Perhaps you can offer a link to an article about them being armed.
The police have nobody to blame but themselves if they feel handcuffed. All they had to do was show a fraction of the respect for citizens they advertise on the side of their patrol cars. Staying silent and allowing bad officers to behave they way they do, even when the cameras are rolling, is what soured the whole police force. They made their bed, so they can lie in it.
The blame for the rise in crime lies squarely in the corner of those politicians who have tied the hands of the NYPD. It is THEY who have stopped the Department from doing its job. Period.
Mark, I actually almost agree with you – and I do not think we are seeing the results of Mr. DeBlasio’s approach (although if we are, I guess his approach is also responsible for the 17% reduction in major crime overall.
But the problem with what you say is that it isn’t the police who are lying in the bed they made, it is all of us. .Perhaps that is equally just, since clearly there are a lot of us who passively let it happen, and a lot of commenters here who would like to continue stop and frisk and all the rest of the things that went too far in my view. But in the end, these crimes are causing suffering to people who had likely had nothing to do with the way things were and are done. That makes it a little hard for me to just say “You’re getting what you deserve”, because the people who may deserve something are not the noes getting it. Similar, for example, to people being stopped and frisked for no good reason.
Sorry Mark. I am missing the point there.
So its the poices’ fault but who is punished? the law abiding citizens and visitors of New York City.
Also, in my humble opinion, the whole thing is overblown. Every criminal cries police brutality. I saw it personally with a purse snatcher on 60th next to Time Warner. Yea, subduing someone who is resisting arrest is unpleasant but necessary.
My interactions with the police have usually been fine. yes, I am white, but i asked my black friends and they have had no problems either.
Its just another part of the topsy turvy minds of self named “progressives” who seem bent on maintaining the status quo of intergenerational poverty and stopping movements that actually help, like Charter Schools.
For the life of me, I do not understand it.
I would love to meet these black friends of yours. I could really use some advice on how they handle your xenophobic comments about poverty, race and real estate. Just because I’m left, doesn’t mean you’re right.
Like the positive spin on the statistics.
“Overall, major crime is down 17% in Central Park this year, and robberies remain well below their mid-90’s levels.” Who authored this , , , Commissioner Sharpton?
A crime is a crime, NYPD has been trying to break these stats down into categories to simplify stats and put a spin where needed. Why not just compare to Colonial Days when there was probably zero robberies in Central Park. Correction, ‘Major Crime’ was zero 🙂
Report the crime as it is. All of us Upper West Siders who have resided in the hood for over 50 years don’t need the sugar coating.
Exactly! Who is writing this, a DeBlasio staffer? Since when is robbery not a major crime? I’m quite certain that if the author of this blog stared down the working end of a handgun while having his/her possessions ripped out, he/she would consider that “major”. . .
Yes, robbery is a major crime. The story did not say it wasn’t.
NYPD classifies “major crimes” in seven categories, one of which is robbery. If you click through the link provided in the story and below, you can see. Through September, major crime in Central Park in total is down 17% through September this year. This is pretty standard context we include in most of our stories, regardless of who is mayor, etc:
https://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/crime_statistics/cs022pct.pdf
A thorough and detailed explanation, and a really well-argued one at that. Thank you.
Yep – and when crime grows to the point where that is no longer a favorable comparison, they’ll start using the mid-80’s statistics.
Thugs being thugs. We all know it.
Jesus, you’d think this was FoxNews.com.
Emja-
Have a problem with facts? Evidently you do. Maybe you should watch a little Fox News and gain some brain power.
You are my hero! Please start calling people “pinheads”.
That’s really bizarre. Robbed of $14?? Very strange.
$14 was probably all the guy had in his pockets.
As kids, many of us were given “mug money,” about 20 bucks or so. We’d carry it around when we left the house.
Mug money! Love it.
I was mugged in Brooklyn back in the day (80’s)and all they got was three dollars !
I completely sympathize. I’ve been mugged once – not in NYC though – and I was pretty shaken up, but I sure had a rough description of the mugger. I just wondered why there wasn’t one here. I’m also not very familiar with the Samsung Galaxy phone – is it like an iPhone where they could either 1) brick it remotely, so it’s worthless to the mugger, and/or 2) use its internal GPS to track down where it is now?
I hope you realize that the flip side of those “smartphone” features that you cite is that they are used to snoop on and track you.
….missing law-&-order Bloomberg…..liberals voted for DeBlasio ergo endure higher crime rates…..
Remember when “conservative”-types complained incessantly about Bloomberg? I am convinced that the constant moaning about middle of the road politicians is the sound of an entire generation of angry old men (and the women who love them) being lowered into their graves.
…you better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone.
Anger isn’t always unjustified.
Perhaps one day you’ll be old– if you live long enough. Perhaps you’ll be angry, too.
What’s the “historic Greensward”? (Google just told me about the Greensward Plan and the Greensward Circle of young professionals.)