‘Not in pandemic mode anymore’: NYC has record-low October shootings as crime patterns shift
Shootings and murders in October dropped to their lowest numbers for that month since recordkeeping began, setting a milestone Mayor Eric Adams and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch are framing as a public safety high point heading into Election Day.
According to statistics released Monday, one day before voters chose Adams’ successor at the polls, the NYPD recorded just 43 shooting incidents and 18 murders in October. By comparison, there were 160 shootings in October 2021, when violence spiked. The subway system also matched a record low for major crime, last seen during the COVID-19 pandemic as ridership plunged.
But the celebratory numbers mask a more complicated reality: Overall crime remains 27% higher than before the pandemic, felony assaults have surged 80% since 2008, and in some patrol regions, like Queens North, murders are up 53% and shootings have increased 43% year to date.
"This isn’t luck or coincidence – it’s the direct result of our precision policing strategy and the relentless work of the men and women of the NYPD who carry out this plan and make our city safer,” Tisch said in a statement, crediting the department's ”fall violence reduction plan,” which deployed 1,800 officers to 54 high-crime zones.
Adams called it "another record-breaking month of crime declines."
Yet criminologists say New York is following a national trend, not leading it, as the country emerges from pandemic-era disruptions.
"This goes back to that whole idea that the nation's starting to get back to normal,” said Chris Herrmann, a criminologist who studies the city’s crime patterns. “We're not in pandemic mode anymore.”
Amid the drop in shootings, overall crime has changed since the pandemic. That includes where crime is happening and what kinds are increasing.
NYPD data shows there have been 99,904 major crimes so far this year, compared to 78,388 during the same period in 2019. While Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn have experienced improvements, northern Queens tells a different story, with murders and shootings both on the rise.
"It shows you that when there are citywide crime declines, it's usually not the whole city that's actually declining," Herrmann noted.
Felony assaults have essentially remained flat compared to last year, but they’ve been on a steady upward trajectory for nearly two decades, rising from 13,853 in 2008 to more than 24,500 so far this year.
While officials have attributed
NYPD data shows October 2020 and October 2025 each had 154 reported crimes in the subway system. But the nature of the offenses shifted. There were 10 fewer theft-motivated crimes last month and 10 more felony assaults, often dangerous and random attacks.
Herrmann said this return to "normal" comes after years of upheaval that fundamentally altered crime patterns, suggesting deeper social fractures that positive trends in shooting incidents don't capture.
"The pandemic caused a heap of different problems," he said. "Everything from housing insecurity to food insecurity to unemployment to just uncertainty."
