NYC to install panic buttons in bodegas to combat rising crime

New York City taxpayers are paying $1.6 million for an initiative that will install panic buttons in 500 bodegas (small convenience stores).

Mayor Eric Adams announced the initiative on Sunday after a string of crimes in local bodegas. The panic buttons will send a signal to the NYPD’s central command center, bypassing 9-1-1 dispatchers. The company Silent Shield will install the devices in bodegas located in crime hotspots across the five boroughs.

“Instead of just having the cats keeping away the rats, we’re going to have a direct connection with the police to keep away those dangerous cats that try to rob our stores,” Adams said to reporters at the Sunday press conference. The mayor told the New York Post that information on which bodegas are being equipped with panic buttons is being kept secret.

“No one knows who would actually have a device or not. That adds to the omnipresent and the element of surprise that we’re looking for,” Adams said.

While some felonies, such as murder, robbery, and burglary, have somewhat declined since 2023, city data for 2024 shows a jump in rapes, drug crimes, weapons crimes, and felony assaults from the year before. The actual crime rates may be higher, however, in light of reports that NYPD precincts have been known to downgrade felonies to misdemeanors and sometimes refuse to take victims' complaints in an effort to drive down the crime rate.

The panic button initiative is just one of Mayor Adams’ ideas to combat crime. In 2023, he encouraged retailers to refuse entry to anyone wearing a mask.

“Do not allow people to enter the store without taking off their face mask and then once they’re inside they can continue to wear if they so desire to do so,” he said, adding: “When you see these mask-wearing people, oftentimes it’s not about being fearful of the pandemic. It’s fearful of the police catching [them] for their deeds.”

The suggestion came after Adams forced school children, including toddlers, to wear masks throughout the day, while the elderly and immunocompromised were exempt.

Gun control

New York has strict gun control laws that require taxpayers who wish to carry a firearm to first obtain a license by justifying to the state why they need one. This flouts a Supreme Court ruling in 2022 in New York v. Bruen that found the state’s gun control laws in violation of the Second Amendment. 

However, it seems some citizens are being disarmed willingly. On April 29, 2023, New Yorkers surrendered 3,000 firearms to the state in exchange for gift cards. The submissions, part of a program coordinated by New York Attorney General Letitia James, took place at nine different “buyback” locations throughout New York, including two in New York City. 

Residents were offered a range of gift cards in exchange for their guns. Surrendering a non-working replica, antique, or 3D-printed gun was rewarded with a $25 gift card. Rifles and shotguns received $75 gift cards, and handguns, assault rifles, and “ghost guns” — guns which cannot be traced back to their owners — received $500 gift cards, with an extra $150 awarded for each additional gun surrendered.

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