Hout on felony assault breakdown, domestic violence, and public employee assaults
Hout explains felony assault covers serious physical injury, assaults on elderly and public service workers. He details 80% arrest rate, 40% domestic violence cases with 92% arrest rate, and 50% increase in assaults on public employees. NYPD has 450 dedicated DV investigators.
And talk to us about some of the challenges.
So felony assault is a very serious crime.
It's an elderly person getting assaulted.
It's a serious physical injury.
It's a police officer getting assaulted, a public service worker getting assaulted.
So we take it extremely seriously.
So looking at felony assaults, felony assaults is a top priority for this department.
Our closure rates highlight how serious we take this issue.
Felony assaults are slightly up this year and have been increasing for the past several years.
However, the department is playing its part.
Citywide, the NYPD has made roughly 80% of arrests on all felony complaints.
That's an all-time high.
To put that in perspective, that's 17,000 arrests.
This is a direct result of great patrol response, detective bureau gathering evidence, supporting survivors, and working with all our prosecuting partners.
We can't do it alone.
We cannot do it alone.
And we are working with the Avis groups, with the district attorney's office, and all our partners.
And when we go even deeper, we look at two main drivers for felony assaults.
The first is domestic violence, and that's nearly 40% of felony assaults.
And assaults on public sector employees, that's up 50% from last year.
So for domestic violence, NYPD has made arrests on roughly 92% of these complaints.
Again, that's no accident.
We have over 450 dedicated investigators assigned to domestic violence.
What that means is when a victim of domestic violence reports the crime,
when they walk in, when they call 911, that investigator is going to be with them from the inception.
And they're going to deal with them through the complaint, through the court process, through the arrest process, so they feel comfortable.
So they're not telling that story many times to a different investigator.
It's just easier and it makes them feel safe.
So that's what we're doing.
With public sector employees, the department is dedicated to significant resources in investigating and holding these perpetrators accountable.
These are our city nurses.
These are our teachers, our MTA employees who work alongside with us, and they're getting assaulted, and we want to bring justice for them.