NY shootings, gun deaths drop from pandemic peaks. Here are the numbers

In Buffalo, Rochester and others cities around New York, the deadly gun violence that surged on their streets and around the U.S. during the pandemic shows signs of abating.

Gov. Kathy Hochul visited her hometown of Buffalo to celebrate that trend with local leaders on Friday. Shootings with injuries in the state's second largest city plunged by 33% last year and by another 39% in the first half of this year, according to state data. Gunfire claimed 11 Buffalo lives in those six months, a 69% drop from the same period last year.

Hochul, appearing with Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown and law enforcement officials, credited the declines in shootings and other violent crime in Buffalo to local crime-fighting efforts, seizures of illegal guns and state-funded programs that support those activities.

"Holding out Buffalo as a model this day is an opportunity for us to say, they're doing it right, the numbers are trending in a positive direction," Hochul said. "And more people are alive today in Buffalo as a result of these efforts."

Similar shooting declines have played out across the state.

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How much has gun violence declined in NY?

Rochester, which saw huge spikes in gunfire in 2020 and 2021, reversed course last year and continues to drop. In the first six months of 2023, shootings with injuries were down 29% and gun deaths decreased by 41% compared to the same period last year, according to figures from the state Division of Criminal Justice Services.

Rochester's drops matched the overall declines for 20 police jurisdictions across New York where police have been given state funding to reduce gun violence. In addition to Buffalo and Rochester, that list includes Yonkers, Syracuse, Utica, Binghamton, Mount Vernon, Albany and Newburgh.

In New York City, shootings are down 27% this year compared to the same period last year, according to the police department's weekly figures. The city also reported significant drops this year in homicides, rapes and burglaries, although assaults have risen.

At Friday's press conference in Buffalo, Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia attributed the decreased shootings to his officers' hard work and a plan the department made last year to be "present, visible and engaged" in the community. Those efforts wouldn't have been possible without city and state funding the force received, he said.

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"I love to talk data, I love to talk numbers, but we are talking human lives, we're talking people," Gramaglia said. "We have significantly less people shot, we have signficantly less people that have been killed by gun violence. And our officers of the Buffalo Police Department are working very, very hard to bring those numbers down."

Buffalo was the site of horrible mass shooting last year: the racially motivated attack by a white gunman with a semiautomatic rifle that left 10 Black people dead and three injured at a Tops supermarket. Those 10 fatalities were among the 54 people killed by gun violence in Buffalo last year.

Hochul also highlighted on Friday the increases in illegal gun seizures in Buffalo and across the state. The statewide tally in the first six months of this year was 4,611, fewer guns than police agencies had taken at this time last year but 52% more than they had seized over the same period in 2019.

Chris McKenna covers government and politics for The Journal News and USA Today Network. Reach him at cmckenna@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: NY shootings, gun deaths have dropped sharply. Here are the numbers