Tisch details felony assault drivers and DV unit reorganization

So just a...

Just to level set here, as I mentioned in my testimony, we have seen extraordinary crime declines in most crime categories in New York City over the past two years, but particularly this year.

You are correct that rape is one area where we have seen that continue to go up, and we can discuss the reasons for that.

Felony assault, as of the last CompStat report, is basically flat compared to last year, but you are correct that that is an area where we have not seen

the same types of crime declines as we have seen, for example, with shootings and burglaries and robberies and grand larceny.

So the increase in felony assaults, if you go back, let's say, the last six years, because that's when it's really, that's the period where it's really exploded.

Has been driven by three main things.

The first, as you mentioned, is domestic violence.

The second,

is assaults on police officers, and the third is assaults on other public employees, for example, MTA workers.

Attacks on other public employees are up 200% in that time.

Attacks on police officers are up 100% in that time.

And attacks on, I'm sorry, and DV is up, Chief, is it 100% in that time?

Sorry, DV is up 50% in that time.

So those are the three main categories where you're seeing huge increases in felony assaults over the past six years.

For DV specifically, to address what we were seeing last year, at the end of the last year, the NYPD did a major reorganization of our domestic violence operations, basically to streamline things.

We know that domestic violence is a recidivist crime, and it's horrifying to be the victim of crime in your home, in your personal space.

And so by streamlining things, we hoped we had a number of goals, but among them to create a

victim-centered approach where we weren't having multiple different officers asking victims the same questions, streamlining the experience for victims and hoping

that we can do a better job working with victims to actually deliver.

consequences for offenders, I am confident that that reorganization was the right thing to do.

The other big change that occurred in the department as part of this DV reorganization is we created a special dedicated

DV warrants squad for DV misdemeanors where we have teams of people whose only job it is every day to go out and find offenders wanted for DV misdemeanors.

So the hope

is through all of this to drive consequences for DV crimes and in that way bring the level of DV down.