Fatal slashings and stabbings in NYC are up 37%

Fatal stabbings and slashings are up an alarming 37% in the Big Apple this year.

The NYPD has logged 96 blade-involved killings so far in 2022, compared with 70 for the same period in 2021, according to department stats obtained by The Post.

Stabbings and slashings overall are up 10% in 2022, with 4,344 compared to 3,954 last year, the stats show.

The disturbing data, which cover Jan. 1 to Dec. 11, come as NYC was racking up 16% fewer shootings, which dropped from 1,757 to 1,474 so far this year.

“Not everybody can buy a gun, so what’s the next best thing everyone has access to? A knife,” observed Michael Alcazar, a retired NYPD detective who is now an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

“There isn’t real consequences if you get arrested with a knife; it’s probably just a misdemeanor and you’re going to be given a smack on the wrist,” he added.

The grim stats do not include the latest incident: On Friday night, a 27-year-old woman was stabbed to death at a homeless shelter in Manhattan, police said.

The victim was attacked by a 42-year-old woman just before 10 p.m. inside of the Project Renewal New Providence Women’s Shelter on East 45th Street near 3rd Avenue in Midtown, according to the NYPD.

Officers found the victim in the 6th floor hallway with stab wounds to the head, shoulder and thigh, cops said. She was transported by EMS to Bellevue Hospital where she was pronounced dead about a half hour later, police said. The killer ran out of the shelter and remains at large.

Just last weekend, a 16-year-old girl was fatally stabbed in the neck in a Manhattan apartment after allegedly getting into a fight with her boyfriend.

Zyaire Crumbley, the 18-year-old accused of stabbing Saniyah Lawrence inside their Harlem dwelling, turned himself in to authorities a day after the Dec. 11 killing, police said. The teen suspect — who has six prior robbery arrests — was charged with murder.

Last month, three women in Queens were found stabbed to death in their Springfield Gardens apartment.

Within a span of 10 days starting Sept. 30, three people were fatally stabbed in the city transit system.

“You have the knife on your person, you encounter a confrontation and there’s no cooling off period,” Alcazar said. “How many times do you walk through the turnstile and there’s an EDP standing there staring directly at you, like he’s in a trance. You don’t know if that guy has a knife or a weapon.”

Alcazar added that under bail reform, where DAs in New York are not prosecuting low-level weapon cases, there’s a “comfortability” factor for criminals. “Everyone’s packing because everyone feels they have to protect themselves with the surge in crime in New York City. Bad guys have to protect themselves from other bad guys.”