New York City police officers fired their guns in just 23 incidents in 2017, setting a record for the fewest police shootings in the city’s history, the New York Daily News reported.
The record follows a downward trend in shooting incidents since the 1990s, but still shows a substantial fall from 2016’s total of 37 shootings, the NYDN reported Thursday. In contrast, NYPD officers fired rounds in 59 incidents in 2005 and 147 incidents in 1996. The 23 incidents saw 32 of New York’s finest firing a total of 170 rounds. With 75 rounds landing on target, the department sports a 44 percent hit ratio.
“New York is the biggest city in the country. It is a leader from a policing standpoint,” Chuck Wexler, head of the Police Executive Research Forum told Vice News. “I think holding officers to a higher standard, giving them the training and equipment, all of that has made a difference.”
The NYPD has roughly 34,000 full-time police officers and just 32 of them opened fire on another 32 perps. That comes out to less than one in ever 100,000 New Yorkers taking rounds from the police. Police attribute the downturn to a surge in the use of non-lethat stun guns.
Through the end of November, police used stun guns 2,372 times, a 39 percent increase over the same period in 2016. Nearly half of the department has been trained to use to weapons and their use has steadily increased since 2014, when police fired stun guns just 700 times.
The department has also handled several terrorist threats throughout 2017. They arrested terrorist Sayfullo Saipov in early November after he drove a truck nearly a quarter mile down a bike path, killing eight people and injuring about a dozen others.
Saipov’s arrest was one of the 23 police shootings this year, as a police officer shot him in a non-lethal area before making his arrest.
The NYPD arrested another ISIS-inspired terrorist who attempted a suicide bombing in Manhattan in early December. Akayed Ullah, 27, botched his pipe bomb, and failed to kill even himself when it exploded against his chest. A few people next to him received minor injuries such as a ringing in the ears.
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