were up 39% from the previous year, shootings were up 29% and car theft was up 72%. Likewise, February and March saw 20% increases in major index crimes. De Blasio said that the consecutive months of 20% increases had been caused by recent bail reforms. Some advocacy groups who support the bail reforms accused the NYPD of misclassifying non-index crimes to put pressure on politicians in Albany. While the cause remains a subject of debate, recent changes to stop and frisk may have also had an impact, a view that was supported by former police commissioner Raymond W. Kelly. In June 2020, gun violence spiked to the highest levels seen in nearly 25 years. De Blasio responded that more officers would be on the streets: Unlike the crime increases from earlier months, June also saw a spike in murders, up 134% over the previous year. August saw shootings more than double compared to the previous year. Eric Adams The election of Eric Adams as mayor was widely seen as a response by the electorate to concerns about rising crime. Police commissioners Two of the most influential police commissioners of New York City, Raymond Kelly and William Bratton, helped to greatly reduce the city's crime rate. The New York Times has called both men "the city's most significant police leaders of the past quarter-century." Ray Kelly On October 16, 1992, David Dinkins appointed Raymond Kelly the 37th Police Commissioner of the City of New York. The national decline in both violent crime and property crime began in 1993, during the early months of Raymond Kelly's commissionership under Dinkins. At the time a firm believer in community policing, Kelly helped spur the decline in New York City by instituting the Safe Streets, Safe City program, which put thousands more cops on the streets, where they would be visible to and able to get to know and interact with local communities. As the 37th commissioner, he also pursued quality of life issues, such as the "squeegee man" that had become a sign of decay in the city. The murder rate in New York City had declined from its 1990 mid-Dinkins-administration historic high of 2,254 to 1,927, when Kelly left in 1994, and continued to plummet even more steeply under Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg. The decline continued when Kelly returned as 41st Commissioner under Mayor Bloomberg in 2002–2013. As commissioner of the NYPD under