More great news from the other side of the Hudson.
Mayor Cory Booker just announced that Newark didn’t record a single homicide in March — the first time in more than 40 years that New Jersey’s largest city has gone murder-free for a month.
The overall homicide rate for the first quarter of the year is the second-lowest since 1941.
This is a remarkable achievement for a city that was called America’s “most dangerous” in 1996 and just four years ago was still considered one of the nation’s “murder capitals.”
Chief credit obviously goes to the smart, hard-working Booker; he inherited a city that had been run into the ground after two decades under corrupt Mayor — and now-convicted felon — Sharpe James.
Booker not only studied what worked in New York under Rudy Giuliani in the ’90s, his most significant hire was an NYPD veteran and an adherent of the “broken windows” approach — stop ignoring the little things, and you’ll find it helps take care of the big things.
Since Police Director Garry McCarthy took over in September 2006, murders are down 58 percent and shootings have dropped 67 percent.
Congratulations to Booker for knowing good ideas when he sees them — and going after great talent like McCarthy to put those policies into place.
Newark’s a much a safer place because of these two men.