NYPD to add hate crimes to Compstat system

Treyger pushed police officials to make change

BOROUGHWIDE — In the wake of a shocking series of anti-Semitic incidents in New York City, the New York Police Department will start including hate crimes in its Compstat crime-tracking system, NYPD officials announced on Monday.

Police Commissioner Dermot Shea told reporters at a press conference that inclusion of hate crimes in Compstat will begin within the coming months, the Staten Island Advance reported.

“The best way to fight crime is to shine a light on it,” the Advance quoted Shea as saying at the press conference.

There have been 13 anti-Semitic incidents in New York City since Dec. 10, according to the NYPD.

The hate crimes included a Dec. 27 assault on an Orthodox Jewish woman in Gravesend who was walking with her three-year-old son and was struck in the head by a woman who allegedly told her, “You f**king Jew. Your end is coming to you.” The suspect, Ayana Logan, 43, was charged with assault as a hate crime and endangering the welfare of a child.

In another incident, a suspect walked up to three Orthodox Jewish women on a Crown Heights street and slapped them in the face on Dec. 26. The suspect, Tiffany Harris, 30, was charged with misdemeanor assault.

Anti-Semitic hate crimes increased by 26 percent in 2019, NYPD statistics showed. There were 234 anti-Semitic incidents in 2019 as compared to 186 incidents in 2018.

Overall, hate crimes in New York City went up 20 percent in 2019. There were 428 hate crimes reported in 2019. In 2018, there were 256.

Compstat, short for Computer Statistics, is a data-driven method of fighting crime in which the NYPD tracks major crimes and some misdemeanors on a precinct-by-precinct basis, allowing precinct commanders to target their resources. At regularly held Compstat meetings, precinct commanders are grilled by police brass on how their response to crime within their jurisdictions.

Compstat was created in 1994 during the Giuliani administration.

The public can access Compstat data via an NYPD website, www.compstat.nypdonline.org.

Up to now, the NYPD has been releasing statistics on hate crimes, but has not included hate crimes in Compstat.

The fact that hate crimes will be included is significant, said Councilmember Mark Treyger, who had been pushing police officials to make the change.

“Adding hate crimes to CompStat helps the city and the community in many ways, including fostering holistic, community-driven responses; increasing local accountability and local transparency; enabling the city to strategically direct resources where most needed; initiating proactive programming; and keeping the community informed,” Treyger said in a statement,

“As hate crimes continue to rise, our city must do everything possible to make sure all New Yorkers are safe. By adding hate crimes data to CompStat reports, it will be as transparent as other crimes on the local level,” said Treyger, a Democrat representing Coney Island, Gravesend and parts of Bensonhurst.

Treyger and Councilmember Donovan Richards, a Queens Democrat who chairs the Public Safety Committee, sent a letter to then-commissioner James O’Neill in October requesting that hate crimes be part of Compstat. The two lawmakers fired off a letter to Shea, O’Neill’s successor, in December, with the same demand: add hate crimes to Compstat.

The NYPD’s announcement is welcome news, Richards said. “Happy to work with my colleague @MarkTreyger718 to ensure transparency and accountability in reporting hate crimes,” he wrote on Twitter.

The change is coming not a minute too soon, according to Treyger. “Tragically, since both of these letters have been sent, there have been more horrific hate crimes committed throughout the city and the metro area. Adding hate crimes to CompStat is one more tool to help combat rising hate,” he said.

The recent rash of anti-Semitic attacks generated anger and disgust in New York. On Jan. 5, an estimated crowd of 20,000 people took part in an anti-hate march across the Brooklyn Bridge.