Major crime in the city rose 12 percent from April through June. The number of stop-and-frisks fell 34 percent.
Coincidence?
Sure doesn’t seem that way. And if NYPD critics get their way, New Yorkers can expect a whole lot more bloodshed.
As The Post’s Rebecca Harshbarger and David Seifman first reported, major felonies in the city jumped from 24,751 during the first quarter of 2012 to 27,832 in the second quarter. At the same time, stop-and-frisks fell from 203,500 to just 133,934 — and the overall number of illegal guns seized plunged from 881 to 732.
It’s not a certainty, of course, that there’s a direct cause-and-effect connection here.
But it sure makes sense.
Fewer stops. More guns. More crime.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly cites better police training and a planned draw-down of rookie cops in high-crime areas for the fall in stops. He denies any link between the trends and the mounting political onslaught against stop-and-frisks.
Yet last month The Post reported that political pressure had indeed made cops “collectively afraid” to stop and frisk suspects.
As one police source said: “People know police are doing less stop-and-frisks, so people carry more guns.” Other reports confirm this, saying cops and supervisors are afraid “to be on the receiving end of any kind of allegation.”
“Credit” the NYCLU for that, and local pols — including most of the 2013 mayoral wannabes, who see the NYPD as a useful punching bag. (To hell with public safety.)
As Mayor Bloomberg says, if the NYCLU dictates policing strategies, “many more children will grow up fatherless, and many more children will not grow up at all.”
True, stop-and-frisk is no panacea. But it works: Last year, the tactic removed 819 guns from New York’s streets.
Yes, the critics note that most of those stopped are found with no weapons — but that’s another sign that the tactic is keeping thugs from carrying.
Clearly the new figures are troubling: Stop-and-frisks are falling, crime is rising.
Is that really what New Yorkers want?