From today's NYT...

"New York City is on track to have fewer than 500 murders in 2007, by far the lowest amount in a 12-month period since reliable Police Department statistics became available in 1963.

But within the city’s official crime statistics is a perhaps even more striking figure: so far, with roughly half the killings analyzed, only 35 were found to be committed by strangers, a microscopic statistic in a city of 8.5 million (bolded by me).

If that trend holds up, fewer than 100 murder victims in New York City this year would not have known the assailants who took their lives. The vast majority died in disputes with friends or acquaintances, with rival drug crew members or — to a far lesser degree — with boyfriends, girlfriends, parents and others.The low number of stranger killings belies imagery of New Yorkers being vulnerable to arbitrary attacks on the streets, or dying in robberies or muggings that turned violent.

In the eyes of some criminologists, the New York murder rate at such base levels means the police will be hard pressed to drive it down further because most killings are now occurring within the four walls of an apartment or in the confines of close-in relationships."