Assaults on Gotham’s aged are up 14% in comparison with final yr — and have skyrocketed 143% over the identical span in 2018, in keeping with NYPD information obtained by The Put up.
There have been 2,112 felony assaults on one of many metropolis’s most weak teams to date this yr, in comparison with 1,853 within the interval final yr, the information present. There have been solely 870 assaults on seniors in the identical span of 2018.
Almost 80% of the two,112 assaults in 2026 have led to an arrest, and the NYPD mentioned lots of them are being dedicated by repeat offenders.
“That is taking place as a result of the identical perps maintain getting arrested and launched via this revolving felony justice system that appears to prioritize the rights of criminals over law-abiding residents,” mentioned retired NYPD detective and John Jay adjunct professor Michael Alcazar.
“The mentally in poor health are omitted within the wild and New Yorkers should maintain their heads on a swivel and be vigilant in avoiding this inhabitants. Seniors find yourself changing into low-hanging fruit and simple pickings for the criminals.”
In 2025, 462 suspects had been arrested for 3 or extra felony assaults in a yr. That was a 192% enhance over the 158 people arrested for 3 or extra felony assaults in 2018, in keeping with the NYPD.
“The reoffending charge for felony assault is up 50% this yr,” a police supply mentioned, which means an individual commits a felony assault after which one other crime inside 30 days. “That’s an astronomical enhance.”
Former NYPD crime analyst supervisor Christopher Herrmann referred to as the aged assaults regarding as a result of main crime within the metropolis total is down 6% to date this yr, in keeping with NYPD information.
“What we’re seeing is a focus of violence amongst a very weak inhabitants,” mentioned Herrmann, an affiliate professor at John Jay School of Legal Justice. “The senior inhabitants has grown … however nowhere close to sufficient to clarify a 143% enhance in assaults.”
New York Metropolis’s inhabitants aged 65 and older grew by almost half one million seniors within the final 20 years, a rise of 53%, in keeping with the NYS Comptroller’s Workplace.
A few third of this yr’s assaults on the aged had been associated to home violence, the NYPD mentioned.
However lots of the crimes had been stranger assaults.
In a single case, a loon punched an 81-year-old lady he didn’t know within the face after beginning a tiff along with her on a Jackson Heights, Queens, road round 7:45 a.m. July 16, police mentioned. The brute then socked her within the head earlier than fleeing.
One other brute shoved a 72-year-old man onto the subway tracks in Midtown on Aug. 19, breaking the sufferer’s rib and dislocating his shoulder, officers mentioned.
The person was ready on the F and D practice platform on the forty seventh–fiftieth Streets–Rockefeller Heart station round 4 a.m. when the attacker creeped up and pushed him silently from behind.
The gutsy senior climbed again onto the platform on his personal. Francisco Garcia, 40, was arrested on assault prices and awaiting a listening to in jail on Rikers Island, metropolis information present.
A maniac shoved an 85-year-old lady to the bottom at East sixteenth Avenue and Union Sq. – leaving her unconscious with a mind bleed — in an unprovoked assault — as she stepped off a bus in Manhattan on June 1, authorities mentioned.
“At this charge, aged assaults in New York Metropolis don’t have any ends in cite and it’s going to take greater than the NYPD,” Alcazar mentioned. “The mayor’s different companies must step up.”
