Assaults on Gotham’s elderly are up 14% compared to last year — and have skyrocketed 143% over the same span in 2018, according to NYPD data obtained by The Post.
There have been 2,112 felony assaults on one of the city’s most vulnerable groups so far this year, compared to 1,853 in the period last year, the data show. There were only 870 assaults on seniors in the same span of 2018.
Nearly 80% of the 2,112 assaults in 2026 have led to an arrest, and the NYPD said many of them are being committed by repeat offenders.
“This is happening because the same perps keep getting arrested and released through this revolving criminal justice system that seems to prioritize the rights of criminals over law-abiding citizens,” said retired NYPD detective and John Jay adjunct professor Michael Alcazar.
“The mentally ill are left out in the wild and New Yorkers must keep their heads on a swivel and be vigilant in avoiding this population. Seniors end up becoming low-hanging fruit and easy pickings for the criminals.”
In 2025, 462 suspects were arrested for three or more felony assaults in a year. That was a 192% increase over the 158 individuals arrested for three or more felony assaults in 2018, according to the NYPD.
“The reoffending rate for felony assault is up 50% this year,” a police source said, meaning a person commits a felony assault and then another crime within 30 days. “That’s an astronomical increase.”
Former NYPD crime analyst supervisor Christopher Herrmann called the elderly assaults concerning because major crime in the city overall is down 6% so far this year, according to NYPD data.
“What we’re seeing is a concentration of violence among a particularly vulnerable population,” said Herrmann, an associate professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “The senior population has grown … but nowhere near enough to explain a 143% increase in assaults.”
New York City’s population aged 65 and older grew by nearly half a million seniors in the last two decades, an increase of 53%, according to the NYS Comptroller’s Office.
About a third of this year’s assaults on the elderly were related to domestic violence, the NYPD said.
But many of the crimes were stranger assaults.
In one case, a loon punched an 81-year-old woman he didn’t know in the face after starting a tiff with her on a Jackson Heights, Queens, street around 7:45 a.m. July 16, police said. The brute then socked her in the head before fleeing.
Another brute shoved a 72-year-old man onto the subway tracks in Midtown on Aug. 19, breaking the victim’s rib and dislocating his shoulder, officials said.
The man was waiting on the F and D train platform at the 47th–50th Streets–Rockefeller Center station around 4 a.m. when the attacker creeped up and pushed him silently from behind.
The gutsy senior climbed back onto the platform on his own. Francisco Garcia, 40, was arrested on assault charges and awaiting a hearing in jail on Rikers Island, city records show.
A maniac shoved an 85-year-old woman to the ground at East 16th Street and Union Square – leaving her unconscious with a brain bleed — in an unprovoked attack — as she stepped off a bus in Manhattan on June 1, authorities said.
“At this rate, elderly assaults in New York City have no ends in sight and it’s going to take more than the NYPD,” Alcazar said. “The mayor’s other agencies need to step up.”
https://nypost.com/2026/08/29/us-news/seniors-are-easy-pickings-for-the-criminals-expert-says/
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