Attacks on women are on the rise in New York City, a trend some in the city are blaming on a persistent shortage of police that has meant fewer officers on patrol.
New York Police Department statistics show a 10% jump in rapes through July 28, with the streets around tourist-centric Times Square and neighborhoods near Brooklyn’s Prospect Park experiencing more of the violent sexual assaults.
The rise in sex crimes comes during an apparent summer surge as the year-over-year increase in rapes began accelerating in May, according to the New York Post, which first reported the data.
The uptick in rapes is an outlier — most violent crime trends are largely returning to pre-pandemic levels nationwide, a development President Biden touted on Sunday.
The Washington Times has reached out to the New York Police Department for comment.
But some cities are still struggling to recover from the dip in public safety brought on by 2020’s anti-police sentiment.
Charlotte, North Carolina, has seen a 30% increase in homicides in 2024. Memphis, Tennessee, is only slightly off the pace of 2023’s record-setting homicide total of 399 killings.
NYPD data shows that most reported rapes are committed in personal relationships or by acquaintances, but a spate of random attacks carried out by criminals on dark streets and in busy parks has fostered growing unease.
Compounding those fears is the city’s shrunken police force that is “robbing Peter to pay Paul” to fight the latest crime trend, according to retired NYPD Lt. John Macari.
“The trains were an issue down in the subway, so they flooded the trains with police officers. Crime drops, but what happens on the street? It rises,” said Mr. Macari, who hosts the podcast “New York’s Finest: Retired & Unfiltered.” “That could hold true for any crime, not just rape — any type of violent crime. Crimes of opportunity happen when less officers are on the street.”
Career sex criminals are accused of targeting girls and women in some of the city’s most well-known locations.
Manhattan prosecutors said a 21-year-old sunbather in Central Park was pounced on last month after an attacker chased, tackled and tried to penetrate the woman. The victim escaped by clawing her way out of the man’s grasp and screaming for help, authorities said.
A suspect, Jermaine Longmire, 43, was arrested a week later and charged with attempted rape and sexual abuse in connection to the June 24 incident.
After his arrest, the NYPD said he had been arrested in the past year on sexual assault charges involving three women on the subway — including groping a woman in Brooklyn just days before the Central Park attack.
He’s had nine total arrests, police said, and has been convicted of a 2016 sexual assault and a 2017 assault, both in Florida.
Another brazen rape occurred last month: An immigrant is accused of violating a 13-year-old girl at knife point in broad daylight.
Court documents said Ecuadorian national Christian Geovanny Inga-Landi, 25, approached the girl and her classmate, a boy, as they played soccer at a Queens park and flashed a “long-bladed knife” at the students.
The suspect then forced the children into the woods, gagged and bound them, and raped the girl, according to the filing.
Authorities said he was arrested after a group of angry citizens spotted him on the street and beat him until officers arrived.
The immigrant, who crossed into Eagle Pass, Texas, illegally in June 2021, was charged with rape, kidnapping and predatory sexual assault.
“We have been going through hell,” the girl’s father, who wasn’t identified to protect his daughter’s identity, told the New York Post. “It just turned my world upside down, and the healing process has yet to begin.”
The unnerving trend captured the city’s attention in May, when a brutal Bronx rape was recorded by a surveillance camera. Footage showed a masked assailant lasso a woman’s neck with a belt and drag her unconscious body between two cars before raping her.
Police launched a 10-day search that ended with the arrest of Kashaan Parks, 39. He is facing charges of rape, assault and strangulation.
“He choked me with a belt because he wanted to demand sex with me in exchange for money. And I said, ‘No,’ and I kept moving,” the victim, who wasn’t identified, told WNBC. “So he grabbed from behind with a choking belt and dragged me to the ground over there by the cars and raped me.”
NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said this month that the department “upstaffed” its sex crimes unit in an effort to curb the rising number of incidents.
But Paul Mauro, a former commanding officer in the NYPD’s Legal Bureau, said the overall drop in police personnel affects the department’s ability to spot crime trends before they become crime waves.
He said the need for patrol-ready officers makes support roles, such as crime analysts, a secondary concern to the NYPD brass.
Those choices leave police in the dark about what’s causing the spike in rapes, which Mr. Mauro said has not been tied to one specific cause.
“When you’re just trying to plug holes in the dam, you don’t have the flexibility to say ‘I need good analysts’ … to crunch all the numbers, do a geo mapping and let us know where all this is coming from,” Mr. Mauro said. “The people that are inside are, if they’re well supervised and managed, a real force multiplier.”
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.
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