New York may be facing a crime trend even worse than deadly gang violence

While New York’s leaders have been cheering the city’s steady decline in murder, another indicator has been giving public-safety advocates pause.

Homicides and shootings have been on a downward trajectory, but felony assaults exploded in early 2021 — and remain far above their pre-pandemic lows.

The city has seen just over 11,000 such crimes year-to-date, NYPD data show, essentially unchanged from the same period last year and up 3% versus 2024.

At the end of last year, the total figure was up 44% versus 2019.

The trend is alarming in itself. But combined with the decline in murders and shootings, there’s reason to believe it indicates a rise in acts of casual violence — a sign of more systemic problems to come.

What’s driving the increase? Gov. Kathy Hochul cited “assaults on public-sector employees” — including bus drivers and police officers — and domestic violence.

These account for about 10% and 40% of incidents, respectively.

Such incidents have occasionally captured the spotlight, as with the four MTA employees assaulted “with wrenches, fists and feet,” The Post reported last year.

In February, assaults against cops were up 3% over the prior year, per The Post.

What’s significant is that this increase in violence has come as other, deadlier violence has fallen.

The decline in homicides is the result of NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch doing what works: focusing on the handful of people and places that disproportionately drive violent offenses.

Rolling up gang members and surging NYPD to hot spots is almost certainly to thank for the city’s record low rates of shootings, too.

But how do we square the circle of this decline against the increase in aggravated assaults?

One possible answer: Others, besides the few serial offenders, are now getting in on the action.

Some evidence suggests that’s true. I looked at court data on arrests for felony violations of the state’s assault law.

In 2025, 62% of those arraigned on a felony assault charge had no prior convictions; 74% had no prior felony convictions.

Those are both increases against the 2020 figures — 54% and 68%, respectively.

In other words, people charged with felony assault are now more likely to have no prior convictions — meaning they’re less likely to be career criminals.

Take, for example, 21-year-old Nassadir Tate, charged with punching a 55-year-old man after the victim bumped into Tate on a subway platform. Tate’s victim later died of the wounds.

Tate had no arrest record at the time. A relative told The Post that “he’s never gotten into trouble.”

How, then, did he end up punching a man to death? And why do people keep assaulting bus drivers, cops and significant others?

While violence may be most likely to be perpetrated by a handful of high-frequency offenders, there is also a general level of violent conduct in a society.

Norms of civic life dictate how we resolve petty disputes — like someone accidentally bumping into us on a crowded subway platform.

Those norms are by no means fixed; they are the product of community expectations, cultural representations and, most important, the law.

When respect for the law declines — when, for example, public officials advocate for the abolition of prisons and police officers — people’s behavior can and does shift.

Moreover, there can be a feedback loop in which lawlessness breeds permission for more lawlessness, creating a runaway cycle that becomes harder and harder to abate.

The fact that assaults have remained high even as other kinds of violence have declined is a sign that norms may have shifted — in a worrisome direction.

Do New Yorkers feel more comfortable now expressing their feelings through violence? Do they feel they have the permission to act out they didn’t five years ago?

It’s hard to know for certain. But the bigger concern is that this trend toward violent behavior does not seem to be abating.

And if that’s the case, the city’s peace may not be a lasting one — and a bigger problem than deadly, rampant gang violence might be rearing its head.

Charles Fain Lehman is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and senior editor of City Journal.