By MES Dispatch Staff
The Briefing
- NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced Tuesday that 594 people were shot in New York City through the first nine months of 2026, the lowest total since the department’s Compstat tracking system began in 1994.
- The figure is down from the previous low of 694 shooting victims recorded over the same period last year and in 2018.
- Murders in the city also hit an all-time low of 203 so far this year, surpassing the previous record of 215 set in 2017.
- The overall felony crime rate is down 9%, but hate crimes have risen 13% to 463, with antisemitic incidents accounting for more than half; rapes rose 4%, and felony assaults in the subway system climbed 11%.
- Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the declines show “what it looks like to be unrelenting,” while noting that any shooting is “one too many.”
NEW YORK — The number of people shot in New York City fell to a record low in the first nine months of 2026, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced Tuesday at a news conference at One Police Plaza.
The 594 shooting victims recorded through September mark the lowest total since the NYPD began using its Compstat crime-tracking system in 1994, surpassing the previous low of 694 shooting victims set over the same period last year and in 2018. Murders also reached an all-time low of 203 so far this year, breaking the previous record of 215 set in 2017.
“These historic results continue to be driven by our precision policing strategy,” Tisch said, “taking illegal guns off the street, dismantling the gangs driving violence, and putting officers exactly where and when the data tells us they are needed most.”
Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the declines reflect “what it looks like to be unrelenting,” while adding, “so long as there is a single murder, a single shooting, a single shooting victim in this city, that it is one too many.”
While the city’s overall felony crime rate — covering murders and six other major crime categories — fell 9%, several categories showed increases. Hate crimes rose 13% to 463, up from 410 last year, with antisemitic incidents accounting for 245 of the total, more than half. Crimes against Muslims rose from 18 to 32, and hate crimes based on sexual orientation rose from 34 to 52. Rapes increased 4% to 1,594, though police noted 171 of those cases fall under an expanded legal definition enacted under the state’s Rape Is Rape Act in September 2024, and that a quarter of all rapes reported this year involve incidents that occurred in prior years. Subway crime rose only slightly, by 1%, even as felony assaults in the transit system jumped 11%; Tisch said attacks on police officers and transit workers account for nearly a third of those assaults.