The mayor’s announcement yesterday that he will not run again for the city’s highest office grabbed headlines throughout the region.
At a news conference late last month, the mayor also made headlines. Called to trumpet his administration’s success driving down crime, the mayor made a bold claim. “We’re on target for the lowest number of homicides since records have been kept in Jersey City. It’s quite a significant accomplishment.”
If true, the achievement would have been newsworthy. And, indeed, local and statewide media repeated the mayor’s claim. But like other claims the mayor has made on crime generally and homicide specifically, there was no truth to it.
In fact, as the mayor pointed out with apparent pride, there had been 12 homicides on the date of his press conference. What he didn’t say was that this was one more than Mayor Jerramiah Healy’s low of 11 in 2012.
And on Christmas day, 46-year-old Khaliq Lockett was gunned down in Bergen-Lafayette, becoming the 13th homicide of the 2022, putting the administration’s record at two higher than Healy’s low. A 43-year-old Jersey City man has been arrested and charged in the case.
Misleadingly, at his news conference the mayor also went on to compare the figure for the 2022 along with that of the average number of homicides under Healy. “When we took office, there was on average, mid-twenties in the number of homicides per year. This year, we are at twelve.”
The Fulop administration has averaged 19.5 homicides per year,...
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