Hate crime reports soared in the Big Apple last month – largely driven by a giant leap in anti-Jewish offenses – compared to October of 2022, according to NYPD statistics released Wednesday.
The city saw a whopping 214% surge in anti-Jewish incidents last month, amid the Israel-Hamas war which began on Oct. 7 when the terrorist group launched a surprise attack on the Jewish state, killing 1,400 people, most of them civilians.
Over October, 69 crimes targeting Jewish victims were reported, compared to just 22 during the same month last year, the latest data shows.
The spike fueled a 124% leap in hate crimes overall, with 101 bias incidents reported last month, compared to 45 in October 2022, according to the NYPD, which said its Hate Crime Task Force was investigating.
While there were no anti-Muslim incidents tallied in October of 2022 — there were eight reported last month, the statistics show.
Year-to-date, however, hate crime reports overall were down 9% – with 485 tallied through the end of October, compared to 531 during the same period last year, the data shows.
The latest numbers come after NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny noted last month that hate crimes had been on the rise since the conflict raging in the Middle East.
“Hate crime is still down, but since the incident in Gaza, there’s been an uptick,” he told reporters, noting that the city was still seeing a decline year-to-date.
The majority of the recent antisemitic acts have been related to graffiti, criminal mischief and aggravated harassment — “basically almost bordering on free speech where people are yelling back and forth at each other until it takes a weird turn,” Kenny said.
A small amount of assaults have been reported, he added.
In one such assault reported around noon Wednesday, a stranger – apparently motivated by anti-Semitic hate – struck a 29-year-old man in the back of the head with an unknown object at the intersection of Ludlam Place and Sullivan Place in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, cops said.
“I don’t like Jews,” the attacker snarled, according to police sources.
The victim suffered pain to the head but was not hospitalized, cops said.
The suspect fled and no arrests have been made.
The latest NYPD data also revealed that crime within the city’s transit system saw a 5.7% surge last month, with 223 incidents reported compared to 211 in October 2022.
But overall so far this year, transit crime has dipped by 3.9%, with a total of 1,855 incidents reported on the rails, compared to 1,930 at this point in 2022, according to the data.
Felony crime overall in the city was also down so far this year — as were shootings, which saw a 25.7% decrease from January through October, compared to the same time period last year.
According to the data, 839 incidents of gun violence were reported citywide so far in 2023, compared to 1,129 during the same period last year.
“The men and women of the NYPD continue to work hand in hand with the people we serve throughout the five boroughs,” Police Commissioner Edward Caban said in a statement Wednesday.
“Public safety is a shared responsibility that takes everybody, in every neighborhood, doing their part. That is how we will sustain low levels of crime and further reduce violence and disorder across our great city.”
