BK Sees Lowest Number Of Murders In Borough's History In 2019: DA

BROOKLYN, NY — The number of murders in Brooklyn reached a historic low in 2019, even as the murder rate spiked citywide, District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced Friday.

The borough saw 90 killings in 2019, down by six from the year before and the lowest number in Brooklyn's history, Gonzalez said.

The official homicide rate for the borough still came in about 1 percent higher than last year due to killings from other years that were reclassified as homicides in 2019, Gonzalez said, but the 1 percent increase in Brooklyn's murder rate was still far below a 7.8 percent spike citywide.

Gonzalez credited the low numbers to a list of Brooklyn-specific criminal justice reforms that he says have enhanced public safety in the borough.

“Thanks to the NYPD and to my hard-working prosecutors, violent crime keeps going down in Brooklyn," he said. "We again led the way in implementing initiatives ahead of the city and state, including declining to ask for bail in most misdemeanors and offering more ways to resolve low-level offenses without a court appearance — which lowered the jail population significantly, kept individuals with their families and did not lead to an increase in crime."

Among those criminal justice reforms were Gonzalez's Brooklyn CLEAR program and Project Reset, which both allow non-violent or low-level drug possession charges to be resolved by offering services or completing a program instead of appearing in court. 254 cases were dismissed in 2019 under Brooklyn Clear and 420 were not prosecuted because of Project Reset.

Gonzalez also pointed to his office's choice to only ask for bail in 7 percent of misdemeanor cases in 2019. The decision came as the city prepared for bail reform laws that took effect at the start of 2020.

The borough's end-of-the-year crime numbers also included a 6.8 percent drop in shootings, even as shootings increased by 3 percent citywide.

There were 290 shootings in 2019, four more than the borough's lowest record in 2017. 63 of the year's 99 homicides were due to shootings, Gonzalez said.

Major crime, or seven serious felonies that were charged this year, was also lower than in year's past, representing a 2.5 percent drop in 2019.

Only 58,288 people were arrested in Brooklyn in 2019, more than 10,000 fewer than the 68,407 arrested in 2018 and one-third less than the 87,607 arrested in 2016.

Gonzalez said he hopes to continue to decrease the borough's crime and jail populations in 2020.

He pointed to his office's Post-Conviction Justice Bureau, which became the first of its kind in the country when created this year and reviews parole applications, encourages sealing past convictions and investigates wrongful conviction claims.

Gonzalez also started the Community Resource Empowerment Center this year, which gives education and job opportunities to those completing community service and set up a boutique that will help those who just got out of jail find a job as part of his Reentry Bureau.