Major crime in New York City inched up this year, and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Friday fingered the culprit: too many iPhones and iPads were being swiped.

A rise in thefts of shiny Apple products accounted for the slight increase in the city’s annual crime index […] Mr. Bloomberg said on Friday morning during his weekly radio show.

[…] Mr. Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly also announced that […] New York City had recorded 414 homicides […] the lowest annual number since the city started tracking comparable homicide figures in 1963. The current low, 471 homicides, was set in 2009.

Still, city officials said the overall crime figure was skewed by the Apple figure.

“If you just took away the jump in Apple, we’d be down for the year,” said Marc La Vorgna, the mayor’s press secretary.
[Crime Is Up and Bloomberg Blames iPhone Thieves sur CityRoom.blogs.nytimes.com]