The FBI’s latest crime report shows violent crime dropped in 2021, but there are a few gaps in the data — like New York and Los Angeles.

Police departments in the nation’s two biggest cities were among those that failed to convert to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s new data collection system, meaning they weren’t able to submit statistics for the report released Wednesday. The FBI and Justice Department instead made estimates for those cities. …

“It will probably be impossible to speak of a precise ‘national’ murder rate or ‘national’ violent crime rate for 2021,” according to the Brennan Center. “Confidence intervals may make it difficult to determine whether the rates of some offenses rose or fell.”

[Seems awfully convenient … — Ed]