NYPD Chief of Department John Chell told amNewYork that the tide on crime is turning. He heralded the success of record-low shootings and homicides, which, he says, was accomplished while understaffed.
Mayor Eric Adams and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced on Tuesday that New York City has seen record-low shootings and homicides in the first five months of 2025, despite several recent high-profile shootings that have rocked the Bronx and Harlem communities. Last month marked the safest May the city has seen on record, according to Tisch.
In a candid interview with amNewYork, Chell discussed the agency’s recent success and how it plans to build upon it this summer.
“It’s really been a cumulative two and a half-year run now, with shooting violence and homicides going down. Obviously, it comes down to deployment and strategy, but at the end of the day, to make it real simple: you take this amount of guns off the streets, fewer people get shot. That’s the most easy way to describe it,” Chell said.
Mayor Adams touted that some 22,016 guns have been confiscated since the beginning of his term in office, with 2,200 being taken off the streets since the beginning of this year. This, the administration charges, has resulted in a drastic drop in crime. There were 18 murders in May, a number that has not been that low since 2017.
‘We just go to where the violence is’
Chell says this was accomplished thanks to the safety zones, areas in which police set up visible patrols and more secretive operations in high crime areas, where through walking the beat, making arrests, and removing guns they have stamped down on crime with a focus to continue this aspect of policing well into the summer.
“We go to the neighborhoods and communities that show the most shooting violence and street violence, and we deploy that way,” Chell said. “We have 70 zones encompassing 59 precincts, and it started on May 5. So, just in those zones alone, we have a 60% reduction in three plus weeks, and at the end of the day, we don’t pick the community per se. We just go where the violence is.”
Despite the massive strides, the accomplishments were marred by the heartbreaking stray bullet shootings that took the lives of 16-year-old Evette Jeffrey and 61-year-old Excenia Mette. amNewYork asked if these kinds of tragic deaths undo the work the department has been working toward.
“Temporarily. When a 16-year-old gets shot, it does set you back,” he admitted. “If anyone loses their life, we’re going to do everything in our power to prevent that with the resources we have. And again, we’re going to put our resources in the areas and the communities that really need our help. And everything we do is about safety, public safety, keeping the city safe.”
According to Chell, youth gun violence remains the biggest obstacle the department is facing, with the chief himself stating that teen shooters have risen to the “high” double digits. This, he says, is a result of the raise the age law that allows the courts to be more lenient on youth offenders and older gang members literally handing firearms to younger members because they believe they will not be held accountable for the crime.
Chell points out that it leaves cops scrambling to strike a balance between law enforcement and social outreach.
“No cop in this department wants to arrest a juvenile, and we don’t do it a lot either, by the way,” the chief said. “We want to put them in positions to succeed — they make mistakes. The maturity level is not where it should be. But the opposite is that we do have some violent teenagers out there that will pull a trigger in a crowd and hurt and kill people. So we gotta strike the balance between helping and you have to be removed from the street.”
In April, several police officers came forward to amNewYork, sounding the alarm on the current NYPD staffing crisis. Chell acknowledged this, stating that he feels it makes the department’s process that much more important.
“All the work we’ve done as a department understaffed, the district attorney is doing better with the law changes that they had to adhere to. This ship is turning. We have the potential to, after this year, take back some major losses,” Chell said. “But we won’t stop it. We’re always trying to get better.”
