Transit Crime Rose Nearly 11% in July. NYPD’s Own Numbers Say It’s Larceny, Assault — and Riders Over 65 — Driving It.
On August 3, Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced New York City’s safest July on record — fewest murders, fewest shootings, major crime down 12.7 percent citywide. Inside the same release sat a different number: transit crime rose 17 incidents, or 10.9 percent, in July alone, 173 major crimes against 156 a year earlier.
There were zero murders underground in July, and NYPD says the rise wasn’t driven by violence broadly — it was driven almost entirely by grand larceny and felony assault. One line inside that assault count stands out on its own: attacks on riders 65 and older jumped 150 percent.
The increase also lands against an unusually low starting point — the July NYPD is comparing against had already been billed, a year earlier, as the safest July in subway history.
- 10.9% — rise in major transit crime in July 2026 alone — 173 incidents versus 156 a year earlier — NYPD, August 3, 2026
- 150% — increase in felony assaults on transit riders 65 and older — 10 versus 4 — nearly a fifth of July's felony-assault total
- −12.7% — citywide major crime decline the same month — the contrast that made the transit number stand out inside NYPD's own release
- +15% — transit robbery, year-to-date through July, even as citywide robbery fell 14.9% in July alone
- $77 million — Gov. Kathy Hochul's (D-NY) 2026 commitment for added NYPD subway patrols
The Monday briefing at 1 Police Plaza was built around genuinely historic numbers. Through the first seven months of 2026, New York recorded 381 shooting incidents, 462 shooting victims and 149 murders — all record lows, the murder count beating the prior floor of 174 set in 2017. July itself set new monthly records: 59 shooting incidents, 81 victims, 21 murders. Citywide major crime fell 12.7 percent for the month, with declines in every one of the seven major categories and every borough.
Transit was the exception NYPD reported in the same release: major crime in the subway system rose 17 incidents, or 10.9 percent, in July — 173 versus 156 a year earlier. That single month was enough to flip the year-to-date trend. At the mayor and commissioner’s midyear briefing five weeks earlier, on July 2, transit crime through June was running roughly flat, down about 1 percent for the year. Folding in July’s numbers pushed the year-to-date total to 1,279 incidents against 1,265 the year before — a 1 percent increase, 14 incidents, where the same measure had shown a decline five weeks prior.
Commissioner Tisch offered context for a demanding stretch rather than an excuse for the number: “This summer, the NYPD was called upon to manage an unprecedented series of major and overlapping events, including the NBA Finals, the World Cup, Sail 250, and the largest Fourth of July celebration in the country.” She credited the department’s “data-driven precision policing strategy” for the citywide declines that dominated the briefing.
NYPD’s own breakdown of July’s 173 transit incidents makes the composition clear. Felony assault accounted for 47 incidents, 27.2 percent of the total. Nonviolent grand larceny accounted for 88, or 50.9 percent — together nearly four out of every five transit crimes logged in July. There were no transit murders for the month.
Inside the larceny count, theft of unattended items rose 107 percent (27 versus 13) and pickpocketing rose 125 percent (18 versus 8). Inside the assault count, the number that stands out is riders 65 and older: felony assaults on elderly transit users rose 150 percent, 10 incidents against 4, nearly a fifth of every felony assault NYPD logged in the system that month. Assaults on NYPD officers made up 12.5 percent of the felony-assault total; assaults on MTA employees made up 10.4 percent.
One open case from that same window illustrates the pattern NYPD is describing. On the morning of July 27, a 47-year-old man riding a Manhattan-bound 7 train got into a verbal dispute with a stranger near the Mets-Willets Point station that turned into a beating — the suspect punched him repeatedly before fleeing through the turnstile. NYPD released surveillance images and offered a $3,500 reward; as of publication, no arrest has been announced, and this piece does not speculate about the suspect’s identity. The 110th Precinct, which covers that stretch of Queens, had logged a 12.2 percent rise in felony assaults for the year through late July.
🚨WANTED FOR ASSAULT: On Friday, April 3, 2026, at approximately 10:15 PM, inside of the East 177 Street-Parkchester subway station, confines of the 43 Precinct/Transit District 12, a 58-year-old male MTA train operator was advising passengers that the '6' train had reached its final stop when he was assaulted.
That post is a different case from an earlier month — it’s here because it’s the norm NYPD’s Crime Stoppers account documents all year: a felony assault happens on a train or platform, a camera catches a partial image, and the case goes public asking strangers for help. Anyone with information on either case is asked to call 1-800-577-TIPS.
Context the NYPD release doesn’t supply: July 2025, the month this year’s number is measured against, was not an ordinary baseline. The MTA announced on August 10, 2025 that it had just recorded the safest July in the subway’s history — major felony crime down 8 percent from July 2024, robbery down 16.7 percent, felony assault down 9.3 percent, grand larceny down 6 percent, and not a single burglary logged all month. A 10.9 percent rise off that specific floor is a real increase in incident count, not a statistical illusion — but it is also, by definition, a comparison against the best July NYPD had ever recorded.
The same divergence shows up when transit is held against the city above it. Citywide in July, robbery fell 14.9 percent, felony assault fell 6.4 percent and grand larceny fell 11.8 percent — all part of the record-setting decline City Hall touted at the briefing. Underground, robbery moved the other way: up 15 percent year-to-date through July, even as every one of those same categories was falling on the streets above. And the full-year picture is more mixed than either the “record lows” framing or the “transit crime spikes” framing alone would suggest — transit felonies are actually down 1.5 percent year-to-date and assaults down 5.5 percent, despite July’s jump. One bad month moved the total; it didn’t erase the year.
Mayor Mamdani retained Commissioner Tisch after taking office in January and has let her frame the department’s numbers publicly; he did not address the transit figure separately at the August 3 briefing, letting the citywide record-low framing carry the announcement. NYPD Transit Bureau Chief Joseph Gulotta, who has led the bureau since October 2024, has staked the department’s response on visible patrol saturation rather than a single tactic: “You can see our officers on the trains inspecting trains, riding the trains. That’s the key.”
“This summer, the NYPD was called upon to manage an unprecedented series of major and overlapping events... the men and women of the NYPD delivered double digit declines in major crime and record lows in violent crime across the city.”
Jessica Tisch · NYPD Commissioner, August 3, 2026
Crime in New York City continues to fall to historic levels: ➡️ Fewest murders ever recorded through the first four months of the year — and for the month of April ➡️ Major crime down 9.5% ➡️ Shooting incidents and victims down double digits compared to last April ➡️ Retail...
That May post recapping April’s numbers is not about July’s transit figure — it predates it by months — but it shows Tisch’s recurring format for posting monthly stats directly to her own account, the same format the August 3 release followed. On the funding side, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) has kept adding NYPD bodies to platforms and cars through her Safer Subways program, including an additional $77,000,000 she committed in 2026 for expanded overnight patrols. MTA Chair Janno Lieber has framed the agency’s role as working alongside that enforcement: “By working closely with Governor Hochul and the NYPD, we’re making sure the transit system not only is safe but feels safe.”
Every New Yorker deserves to be safe. Today, I'm announcing a plan to deliver exactly that. Our Department of Community Safety will implement evidence-based strategies that will prevent violence and crime before they occur.
As President of the United States, I'm not going to let this Communist Lunatic destroy New York. Rest assured, I hold all the levers, and have all the cards. I'll save New York City, and make it 'Hot' and 'Great' again, just like I did with the Good Ol' USA!
General commentary about Mamdani from before he took office — not a response to this transit-crime data, which postdates it by more than a year
Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) — retained Commissioner Tisch after taking office; his Department of Community Safety plan, announced during the 2025 campaign, remains his administration’s long-term subway-safety approach.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch — delivered the August 3, 2026 release; credits “data-driven precision policing” for the citywide declines and cited a stacked summer events calendar for strained patrol capacity.
NYPD Transit Bureau Chief Joseph Gulotta — has led the transit bureau since October 2024; credits visible train and platform patrols for the system’s longer-run crime decline.
Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) — committed an additional $77 million in 2026 for expanded NYPD subway patrols under her Safer Subways program.
MTA Chair Janno Lieber — frames the agency’s role as working alongside NYPD enforcement to keep the system “safe” and “feeling safe.”
One case moving through the courts the same month is a reminder that July’s spike sits inside a longer record of transit violence, not apart from it. On July 5, 2024, Ronnie Perry surrendered to NYPD after punching a 39-year-old man and pushing him onto the tracks at the W 4 St–Washington Square station; good Samaritans pulled the victim off before a train entered. A jury convicted Perry of attempted assault and assault in January 2026, and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D)’s office announced his sentencing — nine years in state prison — in July 2026. The case is unrelated to July’s CompStat numbers; it is worth noting here because it is the kind of prosecution that takes two years to close while the monthly crime count keeps moving underneath it.
None of that resolves the open question NYPD’s own numbers raise: whether a single crowded, event-heavy summer explains July’s jump, or whether it’s the start of a trend the midyear briefing hadn’t caught yet. NYPD will have another data point at the end of August.
Transit crime rose 10.9 percent in July — a real increase, 173 incidents against 156 — even as the rest of the city posted record lows. It was carried almost entirely by grand larceny and felony assault, not violence: zero transit murders, but a 150 percent jump in felony assaults on riders 65 and older.
The comparison point matters too. July 2025 had just been billed as the safest July in subway history, so this year’s rise is measured against an unusually low floor — a real number, not a spin claim, but one worth reading in that context rather than in isolation.
