Opinion

Bloomberg, Kelly brought suburban safety to NYC

Most people cheered when authorities announced they had arrested four suspects in the senseless shooting death of Dustin Friedland at the Short Hills Mall.

The brutal Dec. 15 murder, committed in front of Friedland’s wife, Jamie, sent waves of horror around the country. Partly what made this national news is that the killing took place in a suburban Jersey mall where such bloodshed is almost unheard of.

In New York City, the murder rate is now at an all-time low, as Mayor Bloomberg said Friday. For the last 20 years, far from doing what many big city police departments have done — write off whole sections to the thugs — New York’s Finest have been as determined to keep the streets of, say, the South Bronx as safe as the streets of the Upper East Side.

Did they achieve 100 percent success?

Of course not. Recall the shooting of Daja Robinson last spring. The Queens 14-year-old was riding home on a bus after a Sweet 16 party when she was cut down by a stray bullet that came from a gang fight. In their agony and loss, Dustin Friedland’s family and Daja’s family are sadly one.

But two decades ago, there were many more Dajas each year.

Crime still happens in New York, and it happens more frequently than it should. But it happens in far less numbers than it once did. And that’s because of mayors and police chiefs who have done their damnedest to deliver to the residents of our most troubled neighborhoods the same sense of safety and security we take for granted in a suburban shopping mall.