Surprise

NYC Police Shootings Fell in 2013

As 2014 cases draw huge protests.

Shootings by New York City police officers, whether unintentional or in the course of confrontations with suspects, decreased last year to their lowest level in at least a decade, according to an annual Police Department report released Tuesday. The report covers the final year of the Bloomberg administration, when shootings by officers declined along with crime in the city. In 2013, the report found, there were 40 instances in which officers shot at suspects, down from 45 the previous year and from an 11-year high of 61 in 2003. Eight people died from police gunfire last year, the report found; all were armed with either a gun or a “cutting instrument.” That was down from 16 the year before. There were nine fatal police-involved shootings in 2011.