Hempstead Village officials are touting a significant drop in the village's crime rate for this year.
Mayor Wayne Hall says robberies were down 26 percent this year and burglaries dropped 38 percent. Overall violent crime fell 14 percent.
Hempstead Police Chief Michael McGowan says the decline can be partly attributed to the department working more closely with outside police departments on the county, state and federal level.
According to the statistics, overall crime in Hempstead dropped this year by nearly 20 percent. Compared with a five-year average, crime was down more than 25 percent.
The category that saw the biggest drop was the number of shooting victims in Hempstead. That number was down 39 percent this year compared with last.