New York City recorded historic lows in shootings and murders this year through September, but assaults on police officers and other public-sector workers rose nearly 8 percent in the period, according to the NYPD. The jump in assaults raises workplace safety concerns even as Mayor Zohran Mamdani and NYPD officials celebrated a broad decline in crime at a press conference this week.
The NYPD reported 2,470 felony assaults on police officers and other civil servants through Sept. 30, up from 2,294 during the same period last year. The incidents accounted for about 11 percent of all felony assaults citywide, according to figures presented at an Oct. 6 briefing at One Police Plaza.
The increase comes as overall major crime fell nearly 7 percent citywide, with more than 6,000 fewer major crime complaints than during the first nine months of 2025. The city also recorded its lowest number of shooting incidents, shooting victims and murders for the first nine months of any year on record.
“Our police department is not only doing the job that many New Yorkers have the full faith in; it is also setting an example for what it looks like to be unrelenting,” Mamdani said at the briefing. “So long as there is a single murder, a single shooting, a single shooting victim in the city, that is one too many.”
NYPD figures, however, show that, through Sept. 30, 116 felony assaults on police officers and 42 on MTA employees were recorded in the subway system. Separately, assaults on school safety personnel contributed to a 23 percent increase in assaults in and around schools during the first four months of the 2026 fiscal year.
Tisch acknowledged the rise in assaults on public-sector workers at the Oct. 6 press conference.
“I would love the transit numbers to be down this year. They're up slightly compared to last year,” she said, adding that the department is “adjusting our strategies to focus on those felony assaults in transit.”
One incident in late August that sparked outrage among the city’s public safety and transit unions was when a 30-year-old MTA station cleaner was stabbed at the Times Square-42nd Street subway station. The event underscored the growing cooperation between the two groups through the New York State Public Safety Alliance, as union leaders push for stronger protections for public servants facing violence on the job.
On the overall reduction in crime, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch credited the department’s precision-policing strategy, which directs officers toward areas experiencing violence and targets illegal firearms and violent gangs. The NYPD has seized more than 4,000 guns so far this year, she said.
Overall, shootings fell 12 percent through September compared with the previous year’s record low, while shooting victims declined to 594 from 694. The city recorded 203 murders through September, 50 fewer than during the same period last year.
Hate crimes rose approximately 13 percent year to date, while reported rapes increased 4 percent. In the subway system, major crime rose slightly, by 0.9 percent, with felony assaults driving much of the increase.
Mamdani said the city would pursue immediate public-safety measures alongside broader interventions, including expanding shelter capacity for homeless New Yorkers and addressing gaps in mental-health care.
The debate over public safety is unfolding alongside Mamdani’s pledge, that he's yet to fulfill, to disband the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group, a specialized unit whose duties include crowd control and responses to large-scale demonstrations. City Council Public Safety Committee Chair Oswald Feliz postponed a planned hearing on the CURB Act, which would disband the SRG, leaving the timing of further Council scrutiny and the future of the unit unresolved.
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