A Rise in Violent Crime Evokes Citys Unruly Past

Yana Paskova for The New York Times

Raymond W. Kelly, the citys police commissioner, after a news conference last week.

APTN, via Associated Press

It is impossible to know if the recent increase in violent crime in the city is legitimate cause for concern that the bad old days of crime may return, or if it simply represents a blip in a trend line continuing a descent of nearly two decades.

Homicides are up nearly 22 percent in 2010, compared with the same period last year. Shootings are up in the city, to 293 from 257, a 14 percent increase. And there are more victims of gunfire: 351 through April 4, up from 318 in the same period a year ago.

But it is not statistics, but rather the tenor and pace of 2010s spasm of disorder that are suggestive of a bygone era, and have again raised questions about whether New York City is finally at the end of crime declines.

Add to this a depleted police headcount and city and state budgets that remain stubbornly unsolved and crime is suddenly a political hammer: The mayor is lobbying for money from Albany, and state lawmakers are pleading poverty even as they try to close a $9.2 billion budget gap and serve the needs of constituencies from Buffalo to Bridgehampton.

Last week, after hordes of young people swarmed Times Square in what has evolved in recent years into a violent Easter night ritual, the mayor used a term popularized in 1989 when a Central Park jogger was brutally attacked, emblematic of an era when crime in the city was at its apex. That followed comments he made in March when he called the uptick in homicides worrisome, and decried, We have fewer police officers on the streets than we did before.

His choice of words was significant for a mayor who typically gives little credence to minor fluctuations in data. But the posturing is laced with a degree of caution, as city officials strive to sound the alarms of budget cuts while at the same time assuring the public that the streets remain as safe as they have ever been.

Addressing a radio audience on Sunday, Mr. *la*hmberg said that since 2001, overall crime was down 40 percent, murder was down 35 percent and subway crime was down nearly by half.

Under the governors and the Senates budget proposals, the city would lose roughly $1.3 billion, and a little more than half of that under the Assemblys plan. The mayor warned in January that the governors proposal would force the Police Department to lay off 3,150 officers, bringing the force down to same level it was in 1985. He backed off that statement last week, saying on his weekly radio program that the city was not going to lay off cops.

Nonetheless, the police force has been shrinking steadily, from a high of 40,285 officers in 2000, to about 35,600 last year.

Even if the cuts in the governors proposal were fully restored, the departments uniformed count is still on course to drop below 33,000 through attrition by July 2011, its lowest level since 1990, when it had 32,441 officers, including housing and transit police before the departments were merged.

That was the year murders in the city peaked at 2,245, making it one of the nations top murder capitals. Not only is the force smaller, but it is also being pulled in more directions, with roughly 1,000 officers on counterterrorism duty. The department devotes cars and resources to a critical response team and to provide a presence near potential terrorist targets, though those resources can be redeployed to areas with elevated crime.

Some officials worry the city is already slipping toward its lawless past.

What is the tipping point? said Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president. How low can you go, in actual police numbers? And I think what these statistics say, and these other incidents say, especially those who have been around the city all our lives, is we may have tipped a little.

Mr. Stringer added that for the first time in a long time he is hearing from constituents who do not feel safe in the subways or the streets. A string of six stabbings involving high school students over a few days last month, along with a subway brawl that left two people dead and the Easter night mayhem in Times Square have helped stoke those fears.