New York City sets new record after going 11 days in a row without a murder

Police say the winter weather is responsible for dip in homicides

(Getty Images)

Wind chills dipped into the negative-Fahrenheit range Friday morning in New York City – dangerously cold. But the continuing cold weather actually has kept New Yorkers safe, at least in terms of murders, as the city has gone a record 11 days without a homicide.

The New York Police Department said that in the 11 days that ended 12 am Friday, the city didn’t have a single murder, the longest streak recorded since NYPD launched its digital crime-tracking system in 1994, the New York Daily News reported. The previous record was nine days, set in 2013, also recorded in the throes of winter.

New York often gets credited for being safe for a city of its size, but criminologists warn not to take too much from these numbers. Crime is cyclical and murder rates decline in the winter, they say.

According to NYPD statistics, seven murders were recorded in the week before the streak began and 39 murders were committed between 1 January and 1 February, 2015, up from 33 over the same period in 2014.

While murders remain a problem in New York, they have fallen precipitously since 1990, NYPD data shows. In 1990, 2,262 murders were committed, 85.3 per cent higher than the 333 murders recorded in 2014.

For comparison, London had 94 murders in 2014, according to stats from the Metropolitan Police.

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