This year has gotten off to a bloody start in The Big Apple. The murder count in New York City is nearly 23 percent higher than the same period last year, with the NYPD recording 97 murders as of March 21, according to the Daily News.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg is angling for more state aid from Albany. A doomsday city budget envisions having to lay off 3,150 police officers if the state makes the big cuts it promised earlier this year.
Bloomberg usually dismisses short-term increases in crime. But on his weekly radio show, he said it’s worrisome that murders, rapes, felony assaults and burglaries have risen, though slightly.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly says it’s too early in the year to interpret the crime statistics as a trend. He says the public should not be concerned.
Two hundred and ninety three people were shot and wounded in the first 11 weeks of 2010 — a 16 percent increase from 2009.
The NYPD says that, despite the increase, this is the second lowest murder rate since the department began keeping records in 1963. NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said that this year’s murder rate is still 14% lower than 2008 and 39% lower than the murder rate in 2001.
(1010 WINS/AP/Noam Amdurski-Matzav.com Newscenter})
Wait a minute. I thought Bloomberg was our savior. Wasn’t that the reason all those mindless idiots voted him in again?