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Public Safety & Justice

Public Safety & Justice in New York

The NYPD, the DAs, the jails, and the cases that set precedent, reported without the breathless crime-blotter panic. We tell you what shifted and who it lands on, not just the scariest headline of the night.

Desks we analyze here: New York Post (Metro), Hell Gate, Gothamist.

The coverage, newest first

52 stories
  1. August 21, 2026 The Albany Capitol bomb plot An Albany woman spent weeks building a bomb with the FBI's help before agents arrested her a mile from the building she wanted to blow up. Albany / statewide
  2. August 20, 2026 Two cyclists killed in one day reopen the fight over New York's deadliest streets A driver ran over a 29-year-old e-bike rider and fled. Hours later, a second cyclist died in the Bronx. Brooklyn
  3. August 17, 2026 The Mahajan family's $105 million claim against the city Nobody had died on a Central Park carriage ride in over 150 years, until a spooked horse and a stray current changed that. Manhattan
  4. August 16, 2026 The Central Synagogue hate attack A man barged into Friday night services shouting slurs, and by Saturday the mayor, the police commissioner and the City Council speaker were all... Manhattan
  5. August 16, 2026 The Dyckman Takeover, round three Seven hundred officers and a shuttered street are the city's answer to a teenage crowd that turned deadly once already this month. Manhattan
  6. August 14, 2026 A First Conviction Under NYPD's Chokehold Ban Six years after the city outlawed chokeholds, a jury finally convicted an officer for using one. The Bronx
  7. August 11, 2026 Liberty Island Boat Capsize Deaths A birthday cruise turned fatal because the man at the wheel had no license, no inspection, and four more people aboard than his boat was rated for. Manhattan
  8. August 10, 2026 The Liberty Island boat capsize A boat built for 10 carried 14 people to the Statue of Liberty and back only 12. Citywide
  9. August 9, 2026 A boat capsizes off Liberty Island, killing a woman and an infant Fourteen people went into New York Harbor after dark Saturday; only twelve came out alive. Manhattan
  10. August 9, 2026 A third body is pulled from the Norwood fire Tenants who already lost their homes to a Bronx blast now wait to learn if it took a third neighbor, too. The Bronx
  11. August 6, 2026 Norwood explosion and five-alarm fire A blast loud enough to blow doors off their hinges turned a Bronx apartment building into a five-alarm fight for 300 firefighters. The Bronx
  12. August 5, 2026 A third death at Delaney Hall ICE quietly stopped counting some of its own dead, and a congressman found out anyway. Albany / statewide
  13. August 2, 2026 Jacob Freytes's funeral and his mother's push for a new law A 12-year-old rode his bike out to buy a ball. A week later, his father, a retired NYPD sergeant, buried him. The Bronx
  14. August 1, 2026 Adonis Jarvis's starvation death in Mott Haven A boy who weighed 59 pounds when he died was already known to the agency that's supposed to protect him. The Bronx
  15. July 30, 2026 Teen Killed on Illegal E-Moto Near City Hall Gabriel Nacato's uncle bought him the bike as a gift four months ago. It had double the legal power and a company that tells buyers how to unlock... Manhattan
  16. July 30, 2026 Bronx Defenders Join the Summer's Third Public Defender Strike The city gave public defense nonprofits a $32 million raise this year. It still wasn't enough to keep three organizations off the picket line. The Bronx
  17. July 27, 2026 The UWS hate-crime stabbings collide with the Mamdani-Netanyahu fight Two men were stabbed blocks apart on the Upper West Side Thursday, and by Sunday the attack had become a weapon in the fight over the mayor's words... Manhattan
  18. July 27, 2026 A 12-year-old is killed by a stray bullet outside a Bronx bodega Jacob Freytes was riding his bike home with a ball he'd just bought when a stranger's gunfight took his life. The Bronx
  19. July 26, 2026 Far Rockaway explosion and double killing Two relatives are dead, a rowhouse is gutted, and the only person who can explain what happened is the man police just shot. Queens
  20. July 26, 2026 The fifth death in city jail custody this year Julian Pagan told his father to expect him back at Rikers, then died in a courthouse holding cell before he ever got there. The Bronx
  21. July 25, 2026 The UWS stabbings and the Mamdani-Netanyahu rift A knife and a screwdriver on the Upper West Side turned a mayor's Israel rhetoric into a citywide reckoning. Manhattan
  22. July 24, 2026 Deportation orders in absentia more than double in a month Show up hundreds of miles late to a hearing you never got mailed notice of, and a judge can deport you before lunch. Citywide
  23. July 21, 2026 A veteran set 26 Federal Plaza ablaze, and the FBI says he meant to kill A lone man with fireworks, gasoline and a cart full of anti-ICE literature turned Monday morning at the city's biggest immigration court into a scene... Manhattan
  24. July 18, 2026 Legionnaires' outbreak claims first life Sixty-seven cases in, the Upper East Side cluster stopped being just a summer scare. Manhattan
  25. July 17, 2026 The Midtown Tower's Missing Steel The building's own engineer just confirmed what a deleted city report already said: the reinforcement that was supposed to hold up 235 East 42nd... Manhattan
  26. July 17, 2026 The Council Gives Itself a Raise Forty-nine council members just voted a $10,000 bonus for the city's lowest-paid school aides. Forty-two of them also just voted themselves an 18%... The Bronx
  27. July 17, 2026 Rikers Gets a Deadline A federal judge once wrote that Rikers "would shock the conscience of any citizen who knew of them." Fifty-two years later, the man now in charge... The Bronx
  28. July 16, 2026 The Carriage Horse Hearing Central Park's carriage horses may have pulled their last ride: a dead teenager and a City Council speaker's reversal did in one month what three... Citywide
  29. July 15, 2026 Romanch's Law Hearing A tourist's death put an industry that's outlasted a dozen mayors on the clock for one City Council vote. Citywide
  30. July 15, 2026 The Upper East Side Legionnaires' Outbreak The bacteria that killed seven people in Harlem last year is back, and this time it's reached the Met. Manhattan
  31. July 14, 2026 Hochul's data center moratorium The governor froze the permits before the Legislature could force her hand on who eats the bill. Citywide
  32. July 13, 2026 The Pfizer Tower Gets a Net, Not an Answer A 21-story sag now wears a giant net while the developer calls investors to insist the largest apartment conversion in the country is still on... Manhattan
  33. July 13, 2026 Utica Avenue's Bus Promise, Try Number Four New York has tried to fix Brooklyn's busiest bus route since 1951; this round comes with paint, not steel. Brooklyn
  34. July 11, 2026 The Guggenheim's Legionella Test One of the city's most-visited museums just became part of the map investigators are using to hunt a bacterium that has already put 22 people in the... Manhattan
  35. July 11, 2026 A Bronx Commander's Rape Indictment The commanding officer accused of assaulting his own subordinate allegedly warned her that accusers don't fare well against him, then kept his... The Bronx
  36. July 9, 2026 Legionnaires' Cluster, Week Two Seven days into an Upper East Side outbreak, health officials have tested nearly all the neighborhood's cooling towers and still have not found the... Manhattan
  37. July 8, 2026 The Midtown Collapse Scare The city's largest office-to-residential conversion nearly fell from the inside out, and The City Reporter found that officials had known about the... Manhattan
  38. July 8, 2026 The Bus Plan For 2 million daily riders on some of the slowest bus routes in America, Wednesday's city-state plan is the first detailed commitment to fix the... Citywide
  39. July 7, 2026 New York's Prison Violence Report A $9.3 million state review named goon squads, documented beatings in transport vans and low-camera infirmaries, and confirmed what families of... Albany / statewide
  40. July 6, 2026 Upper East Side Legionnaires' Cluster Fourteen cases in 72 hours, no source found yet, and the Harlem outbreak last summer is the blueprint for how quickly this can turn fatal when a... Manhattan
  41. July 5, 2026 Heat, the blackout, and the $8 billion line that wasn't there Citywide
  42. July 5, 2026 Eight shot at Coney Island fireworks Brooklyn
  43. July 5, 2026 Legionnaires' disease comes to Carnegie Hill Manhattan
  44. July 4, 2026 Record Homelessness on the Street Manhattan
  45. July 4, 2026 Mamdani's America 250 Citywide
  46. July 3, 2026 When the New Power Line Went Dark The $8 billion blackout insurance failed on its first day under contract, in 105° heat. Queens
  47. July 3, 2026 Montefiore Is Firing 12 Nurses. It Won't Say What Replaces Them Four months after the 41-day strike, the replacements arrived: software. The Bronx
  48. June 30, 2026 Pied-à-Terre Tax Enforcement Rules Released The city publishes how it will collect the luxury second-home tax, the first notices go out by August 30, and Ken Griffin's bill goes up.
  49. June 29, 2026 New York Prison Abuse, $25.7 Million in Settlements New York's state prison system paid $25.7 million to settle 170 abuse lawsuits in five years, a paper trail of officer beatings, medical neglect, and...
  50. June 27, 2026 The Historic NYC Rent Freeze Seven Mamdani appointees voted to hold 1 million rents flat at El Museo del Barrio on Thursday night, and landlord groups were already calling their...
  51. June 23, 2026 Mamdani turns his coalition on Congress The mayor bet his movement could move votes uptown and across the river. Tuesday night, most of the bet paid.
  52. Saturday, June 20, 2026 MTA confirms a full weekend L-train shutdown for signal work The line that rebuilt Williamsburg goes dark again, and the shuttle-bus map nobody loved is back.

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Explainer How immigration enforcement works in NYC New York City honors an ICE detainer only with a judge's warrant and a serious criminal conviction from the past five years. Here is the legal machinery, city, state, and federal, that sets what agents can and can't do here. Explainer How the CCRB reviews NYPD complaints New York has an all-civilian board with subpoena power to investigate police misconduct, and a hard ceiling on what it can actually impose, which is the tension at the center of every CCRB debate.

Public Safety & Justice, explained

The questions New Yorkers actually ask.

Is crime actually up or down in New York?

It depends entirely on which crime and which year you measure against, which is exactly why the headline number is so easy to spin. We follow the NYPD’s own CompStat data and say plainly what shifted, where, and compared to when, instead of leading with the scariest clip of the night.

Who decides how policing and the courts work here?

A mix, which is why one case can sit in three places at once. The Mayor runs the NYPD; the five elected District Attorneys, one per borough, decide what gets charged; and the state writes the criminal law and runs the prisons, while the city runs the jails, Rikers included.

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