NEW YORK — Despite efforts by New York City officials to tout a dip in serious crime, another statistic is getting more attention — a steep decline in the number of arrests across all five boroughs in the two weeks since two police officers were shot dead in their patrol car.
The totals suggest that a rumored work slowdown has taken hold amid discord between the rank and file and Mayor Bill de Blasio, and raise questions about what impact it could have on the city’s crime rate.
Patrick Lynch, head of the powerful Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, insisted Tuesday that the union was not sanctioning a labor action. He pointed to a shootout during an armed holdup late Monday that left two plainclothes officers wounded as proof that it was business as usual at the nation’s largest police department.
Officers, who are working without a contract, are ‘‘putting themselves in danger to keep this city safe just as they always do,’’ Lynch said.
But the enforcement statistics strongly indicate that the slowdown is real, even if it was initiated at the grass-roots level.
Last week, the number of summonses for minor criminal offenses and traffic and parking violations decreased by more than 90 percent compared with the same week a year earlier, statistics show.
Arrests citywide last week for more serious offenses were down 55 percent.
Thomas Reppetto, a police specialist and author who has written extensively about the New York Police Department, called the results too ‘‘overwhelming’’ to be coincidental and said there could be real-life consequences for the public.
The figures first plummeted in the week after the two officers were killed on Dec. 20 in a brazen daytime ambush by a fugitive who had ranted on social media that he wanted to avenge the police killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. The patrolmen’s deaths exacerbated tensions between de Blasio and police officers already upset by the mayor’s remark sympathizing with protesters who claim a pattern of excessive force in minority communities.
The potential for a slowdown was evident the day after the killings, when word began circulating among officers that they should wait to respond to every radio call with two cars and not make arrests ‘‘unless absolutely necessary.’’
Police Commissioner William Bratton attributed the decline in arrests to a stressful month of protests, police funerals, and other discord that distracted officers from normal duties. But he also warned that if necessary, he would take measures to make sure the numbers return to normal.