De Blasio announces 90% drop in summonses for petty crimes, including public urination
By Erin Durkin
Mayor de Blasio said the city saw a dramatic drop in tickets for small-time crimes like public drinking and public urination. (Howard Simmons/New York Daily News)
The city is moving in the "right direction" with a dramatic drop in tickets for small-time crimes like public drinking and public urination, Mayor de Blasio said Sunday.
The number of criminal summonses dropped 90% for the period from June to October, compared with the year before, after the City Council passed a law allowing cops to give civil tickets for the minor offenses, which also include unreasonable noise and littering.
But the new civil summonses did not make up the difference in tickets — there were about 26,0000 civil summonses, while criminal summonses dropped more than 50,000, according to the data released Friday.
"The fact is when you look at safety in the city, we continue to get safer. The NYPD is acting aggressively on quality-of-life issues," de Blasio told reporters at an unrelated press conference in Midtown.
"We are acting to improve quality of life while also reducing the negative encounters between police and community. So I think this is the right direction."
The controversial summonses have sparked attacks from de Blasio's mayoral race opponents, who say the lack of punishment encourages behaviors such as public urination.
Republican Nicole Malliotakis said de Blasio had "given the green light" to public urination, while independent Bo Dietl brought a "pee here" sign to Gracie Mansion to mark the policing change.
But de Blasio insisted cops are using their best judgment on how to prevent bad behavior.
"You want officers to have different tools and obviously for the lesser offenses less severe penalties," he said.