NYPD ends 2025 with historic decreases in murders and shootings, uptick in rapes

The NYPD ended 2025 with double-digit decreases in both murders and shootings compared to last year while suffering a troubling increase in rape investigations, the Daily News has learned.

As of Tuesday night, the NYPD had seen a 20% drop in homicides, from 381 last year to 303 this year, NYPD sources said.

The number of shooting victims, which includes homicide victims and survivors, across the five boroughs also decreased — by 22% — from 1,101 last year to 853 through Tuesday, the numbers show.

The NYPD has not yet released crime statistics for Wednesday, the last day of 2025, or their year-end numbers.

Gun violence was down across the U.S. in 2025, with a 14% drop in shootings by the end of September compared to the same period last year, according to The Trace, which monitors shooting trends nationwide. Compared to 2021, shootings were down 30% nationwide this year.

New York’s homicide and shooting decreases this year are larger than in many other big cities in the U.S., including Los Angeles, which only saw a 14% drop in homicides and a 19% drop in shooting victims as of mid-October. Approximately 3.8 million people live in Los Angeles compared to New York’s 8.5 million population.

The Chicago Police Department, which protects 2.7 million citizens, saw a 35% decrease in shootings as of Christmas, but 1,464 shootings had been recorded in the Windy City, more than double the 685 shootings that occurred in New York.

The Chicago police also celebrated a 30% drop in murders compared to 2024, but detectives there investigated 412 homicides — 109 more than the NYPD did despite New York being more three times as populous.

The number of rape cases reported to the NYPD jumped by 15% this year, from 1,762 last year to 2,043 in 2025.

NYPD officials have repeatedly said that the number increased after legislative changes made in 2024 broadened the legal definition of rape in New York State to includes more forms of sexual assault. The department has yet to say how many of the new rape reports are attributed to that change.

An email to the NYPD requesting a break down of this year’s rape complaints to see how many were linked to the law change was not immediately returned.

The city has seen a 9% decrease in robberies this year compared to last, a 3% drop in burglaries and a 4% drop in car thefts, officials said. Crimes in the subways plummeted by 4% and residents in NYCHA housing saw a 3% fall in crime.

The number of violent assaults in the city, spurred on by an uptick in domestic assault and attacks on police officers increased this year compared to last, but by less than 1%. Cops recorded 29,485 assaults as of Sunday, 85 more than last year, cops said.

The drop in crime is a feather in the cap for NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who, in her 13 months as the NYPD’s top cop, has repeatedly trumpeted her precision-policing model to crime fighting in which the department sends teams of cops to high-crime areas to tamp down violence.

“For the first 11 months of the year, New York City had the lowest number of shooting incidents and victims in recorded history,” Tisch said last month. “These historic gains are the result of our precision policing strategy and officers executing that strategy with the discipline and dedication that defines this noble work.”

“Our plan is working,” she added. “The progress is real.”

Tisch is expected to continue the precision-policing model during the administration of Mayor Mamdani, who has gotten her to stay on as police commissioner as he begins his first term in City Hall.

In a troubling trend, those who are being shot have gotten younger, the NYPD said in October. Those victims include 15-year-old Eric Aitken, who was gunned down in a building in NYCHA’s Eastchester Gardens in the Bronx on Saturday.

No arrestes have yet been made in that case but the shooter may be as young as 13, a law enforcement source said.