City lawmakers will press NYPD officials Wednesday about crime figures that have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, as well as troubling allegations that officers discouraged residents from filing criminal complaints.
Bronx Councilman Oswald Feliz, chair of the City Council’s Committee on Public Safety, called the oversight hearing to examine “crime categories that require attention,” including felony assaults.
“We’ve made progress on many issues, including shootings and murders, but when we look at crime statistics from 2019, it is clear there is still significant room for progress,” Feliz said in a statement.
Councilmembers are expected to question senior NYPD officials during what is shaping up to be a hourslong hearing at City Hall. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch is notably not scheduled to appear, and the Mamdani administration is not expected to send a representative from the mayor’s highly touted Office of Community Safety.
Feliz cited NYPD data showing that major felonies fell nearly 6% year over year but were still almost 25% higher than during the same period in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We want to better understand the challenges and discuss what more can be done to address them effectively,” the Bronx Democrat said. “Our goal is to have a hearing like this at the end of every year.”
The NYPD, under both Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his predecessor, Eric Adams, has repeatedly highlighted record declines in shootings and murders. The department has less frequently compared current figures with pre-pandemic levels, when New York City recorded historically low crime numbers.
Several other councilmembers will also question NYPD brass about residents’ claims that officers discouraged them from filing criminal complaints, according to sources.
Lawmakers are expected to raise a viral social media video posted earlier this week. In it, a person claimed to have been harassed and nearly attacked in Washington Square Park, then said officers responded to his report by telling him, “Welcome to NYC, brotherz.”
“Every day New Yorkers are told crime is down, but that’s not what many of my constituents are seeing and feeling on their streets,” Councilmember Joann Ariola (R-Queens) said.
“If the numbers say one thing and New Yorkers are experiencing another, we need to understand why, and that’s what I intend to find out during this oversight hearing.”
Councilmembers also plan to bring several frustrated New Yorkers to the hearing to describe similar encounters with police and ask department leaders to respond to their individual accounts.
Before the hearing, Councilman Phil Wong (D-Queens) urged the NYPD to release audit details regarding its complaint-reporting process and identify cases in which criminal complaints should have been filed but were not.
“When crime truly goes down, our police officers deserve the credit,” Wong said in a statement. “But the numbers only mean something if every crime is reported and reported accurately.”
