Three killings over Presidents’ Day weekend marked the end of a record-setting 12-day stretch without a reported murder in New York City, despite continuing blistering cold which criminologists believed helped suppress crime.
The death of a 28-year-old Queens man, who police found with multiple gunshot wounds to the head, leg and hand just minutes before midnight on Friday, ended what the New York police department (NYPD) believes was the longest murder-free stretch since such statistics were first tracked, in 1994.
The man, identified by the NYPD as Eric Roman, was shot outside his home. He was transported to hospital and succumbed to his injuries on Saturday morning. Police called the killing a homicide; by Monday no arrests had been made.
Before Roman’s death, the last reported homicide was in Harlem on Super Bowl Sunday, when two gunmen opened fire on five people at a deli, police said. The shooting left a 28-year-old father dead and injured four others.
Earlier in the week, city officials were buzzing over the unusually long murder-free run. On Friday, police commissioner Bill Bratton hushed CBS host Charlie Rose when he asked about the streak.
“Shh ... we don’t want to jinx it,” Bratton said. “We’re into our 12th day now, Charlie. Eleven is a record and let’s keep it going.”
The new record came on the heels of a historic year in New York City crime. Last year, murders reported to the NYPD dropped to 328, the lowest figure since the department began collecting reliable statistics in 1963.
Officials and experts believe cold weather plays a notable role in reducing violent crime, which almost always drops in the winter months. Prior to this streak, the most recent streak was during the same month in 2014, when the city went a record-tying 10 days without a reported homicide.
However, this year, despite the arctic freeze, shooting incidents rose slightly compared with the same period in 2014. According to police, the first week of February 2015 saw 110 shooting incidents compared to 91 incidents in the same period last year.
Even as the deep freeze chilled the city overnight into President’s Day, the NYPD responded to at least two reports of deadly shootings in the early hours of Monday. Just after midnight, officers responded after a 22-year-old man was shot dead in the hallway of a Bronx housing complex.
Less than two hours later, police found a 17-year-old male shot dead inside an apartment on Staten Island. By lunchtime, no arrests had been made in either case.
