Metro

Murder-rate plunge

New York could end 2012 with the lowest number of murders in the last 50 years, police said yesterday.

The city recorded 414 murders through Dec. 23, 94 fewer than the number of homicides clocked over the same period in 2011. That’s a drop of 18.5 percent.

There’s less than a week to go before the end of the year, and if the trend continues, the city is on track to set a new record.

The city began counting murders a half-century ago.

The current record low of 471 was set in 2009. There were 536 murders in 2010 and 515 in 2011.

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said the department’s under-fire stop-and-frisk policy is “just one tool among many’’ keeping homicides at bay.

He also credited the lower numbers to operations Impact and Crewcut, in which, respectively, mobile units are dispatched to areas with spikes in crime and officers track down suspects using social- media tools like Facebook.

But, Browne cautioned, “Remember, there’s still a week to go before the final numbers are in.”

Through Dec. 16, murders have been down in all but two areas: Manhattan South, where they’re up 14.3 percent, and Queens North, where they’ve increased 3.8 percent.

So far, Staten Island has shown the most significant drop in murders, plummeting from 16 in 2011 to nine this year, a nearly 44 percent decrease.