New York, NY —

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is pushing back against reports questioning the integrity of the NYPD's crime reporting system, CompStat. The mayor challenges the accuracy of a recent survey in which former police officers said CompStat statistics were manipulated to maintain the impression of record low crime levels.

"This is a study that you're referring to that was paid for by one of the unions. So you've got to start wondering if it was an independent study. NYU and the state comptroller both have done recent audits of the data and say the data is accurate," Bloomberg says.

The mayor acknowledged there have been some instances of officers manipulating crime stats, but he says those cases are rare and that major crime continues to fall in the city.