NYC: On The Brink Of Touching A Dangerous 14-Year Peak In Shootings
This year, New York City is about to reach a dangerous 14-year milestone in shootings.
The spike in gun violence should make New Yorkers think and hesitate, said NYPD Police Commissioner Dermot Shea.
Shea said that they had nine shootings across NYC the previous day; last year, that would have been a full week; they had a FedEx driver in uniform shot in Brooklyn. Every metric they saw was disturbing.
He said police make gun arrests, but the suspects are released from jail days later and out on the street.
The mobile phone video reveals an altercation that started as a disagreement in Times Square before turning into a fight.
The spike in violence could be linked to COVID-19, Shea said.
“My fear is too much of this is certainly COVID, this is a year like no other, but COVID is not going to be the end-all and be-all, in my professional opinion,” Shea said. “We will still have to grapple with some of these problems that we are seeing.”
In one recent attack, while sleeping in a nursing home in Queens on Saturday, a 76-year-old man was shot in the leg.
In another case, a 24-year-old man was shot in the shoulder inside a Brooklyn barbershop when two men were attempting to rob him.
NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio said a “perfect storm” in 2020 is happening in the city.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said that what’s going on this year an absolute perfect storm; in NYC’s background before, there’s nothing like that.
He said that people could not combine a massive health crisis, tens of thousands of people dying, hospitals overwhelmed, economy shut down, schools shut down, houses of worship shut down, society not having its regular moorings, all at once, a social justice crisis. He means that this is not like anything they have seen in their history. And he believes that not like anything they will see again in their lifetimes. They saw an uptick in violence in that atmosphere, which is being addressed because they are regulating the situation together again. They saw much more connection between police and community through neighborhood policing. And, they saw many more gun arrests. And they are going into a new year with a new approach that he thinks will help them turn the tide.
The police commissioner also said that every day they have planning sessions on the subject.
We’ve also learned how to push down incarceration and drive down shootings, which was revised this year, “Fourteen-year high in shootings — we had mastered how to drive incarceration down and drive shootings down, that has been upended this year, “Fourteen-year high in shootings. “We have a lot of work to do to get that back.”
As of Monday, the city has reported over 1,700 gun crime victims. That is almost double last year’s estimates over the same period.
Physicians said the patients have reported symptoms ranging from nausea and anxiety to lack of consciousness.
