NYPD set to announce plan to slow spike in stabbings, slashings

City Hall and the NYPD will roll out a series of initiatives Tuesday to deal with a 20 percent increase in stabbings and slashings, including a significant number in public housing projects, NYPD Commissioner William Bratton said Monday.

Bratton was tight lipped on details on the plans when questioned about it during a City Council budget hearing.

So far this year, the city has seen 153 stabbing or slashing incidents, with the Bronx leading the increase. Many incidents are fueled by emotions, Bratton said.

Bratton hinted that police will refine the definition of what constitutes a slashing, stabbing or cutting, a change in record-keeping the commissioner said would be similar to one implemented in 1994 when the NYPD started tracking shootings as a separate statistical category.

At that time, shootings drove much of the violence in the city, Bratton said.

The police commissioner also suggested that uniformed patrol tactics would change in public housing areas and the department, by taking a deeper dive into crime statistics, would try to predict situations where stabbing incidents might occur.

In the past, Bratton has said the NYPD was studying the use of statistical algorithms in an emerging area of law enforcement known as “predictive policing” to determine in advance situations where certain crimes might occur.

“I am very comfortable as we go forward, similar to shooting and similar to all crimes as we did in 1994 . . . will be able to turn the numbers around to get a better sense of where it is happening, who is doing it,” Bratton told the council’s committee on public safety Monday.

Bratton also indicated that cops would be more rigorously tracking stabbing and slashing cases in criminal or family courts.

NYPD spokesmen declined to give any details of the new plan. Bratton and Mayor Bill de Blasio will announce the initiatives at a news conference Tuesday.

Faced with an increase in subway stabbing incidents earlier this year, the NYPD beefed up visible patrols by transit cops in the subways. Putting more uniformed cops in the neighborhoods is perhaps the best way to deter stabbings, said retired NYPD detective sergeant Joseph Giacalone, now a criminal justice lecturer.

“The only option they really have is the preventive policing they have been doing, a more uniformed presence,” Giacalone said.

“There is no rhyme or reason to what we are seeing,” he said.

By Anthony M. DeStefano

tony.destefano@newsday.comtonynewsday

Anthony M. DeStefano has been a reporter for Newsday since 1986 and covers law enforcement, criminal justice and legal affairs from its New York City offices.