Chair Feliz asks about theft of mopeds and grand larcenies
Feliz asks about the rise in grand larcenies involving vehicles and the role of moped thefts, and NYPD says they will get back with data.
Okay, a few questions, and these are questions that we briefly chatted about at our last hearing a few weeks ago.
The theft of these devices, and obviously we're talking about rider safety.
The city, especially compared to the pre-COVID numbers, we've seen a drastic increase in the rise of grand larcenies involving vehicles.
That involves mopeds, correct?
It would include mopeds, yeah, yes.
Though I will say, and I'm not sure if this is where you're going, part of that spike, I'm not saying all of it, part of that has to do actually with issues in four-wheel vehicles.
We talked about this a few weeks ago, where there were certain types of cars that, finally, a flaw in the manufacturing that made them very easy to steal.
Criminals figured that out and realized that because of certain problems with certain types of vehicles, they could go steal them in record time.
That's something that we've worked on in a variety of ways, including by working directly with the car manufacturers to identify those problems and get them to actually fix them.
So certainly part of the story there is about deficiencies, I would say, in four-wheel devices, though you're certainly right that part of that is also
going to be thefts of mopeds.
Yeah.
How many GLAs have we had this year, grand larcenies involving vehicles or autos this year compared to 2019?
Do you have that data?
We don't have that here.
We 100% can get that for you.
Okay, so I looked at the data before we started the hearing, and they have more than doubled.
It's about 4,000 versus over 8,000, so more than doubled compared to the pre-COVID numbers.
Do we think the theft of mopeds has contributed to that drastic increase?
I know you mentioned it's different vehicles that are easier to steal, but I'm wondering the extent that mopeds have played a role.
I got to say, anecdotally, I would think yes, but I don't want to say that definitively without looking at the data.
But that is something that we certainly do have data on that.
We can look at it, and I think we can get back to you with a more precise answer.
Okay, yeah, if you could get us data on that, that would be great.