The Big Apple has seen an alarming 11% jump in rapes this year — with some sections of the city seeing their numbers more than double.
There were 880 rapes reported citywide from Jan. 1 through July 14, compared to 796 in the same period last year, NYPD stats reveal.
“This should be a wake up call,” said Jane Manning, director of Women’s Equal Justice.“The NYPD needs to allocate more investigators to its understaffed Special Victims Unit, so that every case is investigated well and dangerous offenders are apprehended.”
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Areas with the sharpest increases include:
- Manhattan’s 10th Precinct – covering Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen South and Hudson Yards — saw a 300% increase, with eight so far this year compared to two at this point in 2023.
- Rapes more than doubled Times Square’s Midtown South Precinct, to 19 from nine — a 111% climb.
- The 101st Precinct in the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens saw rapes shoot up 100% to 14 from 7.
- The 105th Precinct in eastern Queens saw rapes increase 70% to 17 so far this year from 10 last year.
Most rapists know their victims, according to the NYPD, but a handful of recent “stranger rapes” have rocked the city.
In the Bronx, a deranged attacker was caught on video May 21, throwing a belt around a woman’s neck, dragging her between two cars and raping her at East 152nd Street and 3rd Avenue.
Christian Inga, a Venezuelan migrant who lived in Corona, was arrested for the rape of a 13-year-old girl at knifepoint in a Queens park on June 13 after cops released a police sketch and surveillance photo of him.
The teen’s father, whose identity The Post isn’t revealing to protect the victim, said the family has been in despair since the vicious attack.
“We have been going through hell,” the devastated dad has told The Post. “It just turned my world upside down, and the healing process has yet to begin. He previously told The Post he blamed President Biden’s disastrous open-border policy for allowing career criminals to easily enter the US.
In Central Park, a 21-year-old sunbather was laying out in her bikini in a “remote” area on June 24 when a man exposed himself and jumped on her, cops said.
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The alleged attacker, Jermaine Longmire, 43, was caught after an intense manhunt.
Longmire, who was charged with attempted rape and sex abuse, had at least eight prior arrests in the city.
There have been two rapes in the park so far this year compared to none in 2023, the stats show.
Experts suggested several factors could be behind the increase, including the NYPD’s dwindling manpower, the surge in the migrant population, and failing bail-reform policies.
“It’s no secret that the NYPD is down significantly in terms of force size. Because it’s down, whenever it decides to prioritize something – say for example subway offenses – that’s going to make the topside slightly more vulnerable, as far as more cops are now below ground,” said Rafael Mangual, a criminal justice policy expert and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Mangual said the risk of crimes like rape also has also increased because of controversial policies including discovery reform, which requires prosecutors to hand over their evidence to defenders earlier in the legal process; New York’s Raise the Age law, which in 2018 bumped up the age of criminal responsibility to 18 from 16, as well as soft-on-crime prosecutors, including Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg.
“The rate of cases being dismissed has gone up [and] the rate of cases not being pursued has gone up because of the progressive prosecutorial methods of Bragg, [Brooklyn DA] Eric Gonzalez and [Bronx DA] Darcel Clark,” he said.
Migrant shelters could also be partially to blame for the increase in rapes in certain areas, but it’s impossible to tell without information on the addresses of the attacks, according to Mangual.
The NYPD would not immediately release that data to The Post.
“You’re talking about potentially vulnerable populations in environments that are not as easy to police,” Mangual said. “These are very densely populated buildings … It’s behind closed doors. There’s probably a lot of fear.”
Rapes are also up in areas where open-air prostitution thrives.
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In the 115th Precinct in Queens, which covers East Elmhurst and Jackson Heights, it’s up 50%, from 14 at this point in 2023 to 21 so far this year.
And Queens’ 110th Precinct, home to the infamous “Market of Sweethearts” along Roosevelt Avenue saw a 38% increase in rapes, with 22 so far this year compared to 16 in the same period last year.
The NYPD said it takes all rapes seriously.
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“The NYPD vigorously investigates every single rape complaint and will continue to work to bring justice to the survivors of these heinous crimes,” a department spokesperson said.
