DETROIT — New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg drew major criticism this week from local officials for comparing his City’s crime rate to that of the City of Detroit.

In a tweet on Tuesday, Bloomberg compared the crime rate-to-population ratio of the two cities. New York City has a population of approximately 8 million people. Detroit’s population is about 700,000. 

“Last year we had a record-low 419 murders. If instead we had Detroit’s murder rate, 4,500+ New Yorkers would have been murdered last year,” the tweet read.

But that tweet was not received well by Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, who later on in the same day tweeted he thought it was “sad and inappropriate” for public officials to tout their crime fighting efforts by highlighting other cities’ murder rates. 

Bloomberg (L) with Bing.

Mayor Bing fought back by also insisting that Detroit is not as privileged with resources as New York City is. Bing pointed out the differences between the two cities police departments–40,000 law enforcement officers currently work for the New York City police department, compared to less than 3,000 in Detroit. 

In 2012, Detroit recorded 386 homicides within a one year span, up ten percent from the previous year’s data. An additional 25 justifiable murders, including three police shootings, had also occurred within that calendar year.  

Those figures pushed the murder rate to 53 per 10,000 residents, which made Detroit the highest amongst the nation’s top 20 most populated cities. Only New Orleans had comparable figures for cities with more than 200,000 residents.

2012 also marked the highest murder rate for the City, since the crack cocaine epidemic of the late 1980’s.  It was even worse than 1974, when the City had 714 recorded murders. At the time, the City’s population was much greater, with only 51 murders per every 100,000 residents. 

Despite Mayor Bloomberg’s tweet, Detroit has seen some noticeable improvements in 2013 thus far; 

As of March 31, 69 criminal homicides had occurred in Detroit, down from 76 during the same period in 2012, according to police. 214 nonfatal shootings had taken place by the end of March, down from 243 at the same time last year. These improvements are mostly in part due to the newly initiated Detroit One initiative; a crime fighting effort, involving various agencies, including the U.S. Attorney’s Office.