Historic New Low For NYC Homicides

Gothamist reports:

At today's NYPD graduation ceremony, Mayor Bloomberg announced some impressive news: The 2013 murder total, through today, was 332—a 20.7% drop from 2012's total of 419. This is the lowest since the city started keeping track in 1963. Bloomberg bragged, "New York’s crime-fighting strategies have made us America’s safest big city—and one that cities across the globe want to learn from. Twelve years ago, no one thought New York’s crime rate could go any lower. But it did: since 2001, crime has gone down by 32 percent and in a city of 8.4 million people, there have been fewer than 350 homicides."

At the peak of the crack epidemic in the late 80s/early 90s, New York City saw about 2000 homicides annually. Gothamist has the breakdown by year at the link.