[url]http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/34821.htm[/url]
CRIME SPIKE
By MURRAY WEISS

November 21, 2001 -- Criminals, emboldened by an NYPD stretched thin in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks, have started using their guns again, causing a sudden spike in shootings that threatens the city's heralded downward trend in crime.
In the 28-day period that ended Sunday, shootings were up a dramatic 24.4 percent over the same time last year - with 158 shootings, compared to 127 in 2000, The Post has learned.

On a weekly comparison, things look even grimmer, with shooting incidents up 33.3 percent in the last week compared with last year.

And murders have inched up 7.7 percent, with 56 murders last month, versus 52 in the same period last year.

Murders are still down 8.8 percent for the year. But at the current rate, the city will end the year with 614 murders. That's still less than last year's 673, but it would dash the city's hopes of ending the year with fewer than 600 murders for the first time since 1963.

For the year to date, crime overall is still down compared with last year, by just less than 13 percent.

But just a month ago, overall crime was down more than 14 percent from the previous year.

In the weeks since the WTC attacks, the NYPD has beefed up units hunting terrorists and investigating anthrax incidents - and providing security to hundreds of potential terror targets, as well as checkpoints and ground zero.

This has drained hundreds of detectives and cops from their normal crime-fighting assignments, empowering criminals to make inroads in the city's historic crime drop.

"The bad guys know that The Man just isn't around as much looking for guns," one top homicide investigator said.

"They are starting to carry guns again, and when there is a fight, a robbery or dispute, out comes the gun and, 'Pow, pow, pow" - we have someone lying on the street."

Hardest hit, officials say, are the gritty streets of Brooklyn North, Queens South and parts of The Bronx and Manhattan.

In the week immediately following the Twin Towers attacks, crime dropped dramatically. But during that period, the NYPD kept officers working 12-hour tours to cover gaps. And the police presence was bolstered by hundreds of state troopers and National Guardsmen. But all those ranks have been cut back.

Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said he will redeploy manpower to reverse the trend.

Sources say Kerik "raised hell" with top brass over the upsurge in gunplay and will restore to full strength the warrants squad, narcotics units and gang-intelligence division - all key squads taking guns off the streets. And these cops will no longer be reassigned to WTC-related duty.

"The statistics show the city cannot relax [its] police efforts," said Thomas Repetto, executive director of the Citizen's Crime Commission.

"Criminals have not gotten religion. They are still out there. It's is the police holding them back. And . . . any long-term reduction in police efforts could lead to a significant increase in violent crime."

But that may occur during the next City Hall administration, regardless of how vigilant the NYPD hopes to be.

That's because the ranks of the NYPD may drop sharply with the retirement of thousands of cops taking advantage of overtime-enriched pensions - at a time when recruitment to replace them is low.

Repetto is optimistic.

"The NYPD has been able to solve every problem they've been presented with," he said.

NEW YORK POST is a registered trademark of NYP Holdings, Inc.
Copyright 2001 NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.

I heard that on Barbados radio this morning.

I'm sorry Mr. Warlord, but you must be mistaken.  Guns are illegal in NYC, so there can't be any shootings.

I stand corrected, your soooo right.
Criminals are oppurtunists, if you give them the oppurnity....  During the '92 L.A. riots, the business that had people with guns in front weren't damaged, and the one without were burned to the ground.  Some of those folks lost a lifetime of 20 hour days of effort.  The L.A. city council in there infinite wisdom wouldn't grant a lot of those folks building permits to rebuild.