Half of NYC shooting surge linked to Brooklyn, NYPD says
Half of the shootings that have rattled New York City this summer happened in Brooklyn or have a strong link to the borough, the NYPD’s top cop said Tuesday.
“That’s a big problem,” NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said during an interview on NY1.
“What we’re starting to see, even shootings in other boroughs, when you dig a little deeper and peel back the onion, you see Brooklyn individuals and perpetrators with active gun cases in Brooklyn committing violence in other parts of the city.”
As of Sunday, 475 people had been shot in Brooklyn this year, accounting for just under half the victims citywide, NYPD statistics show. By this time last year, 234 Brooklynites had been shot.
Shea’s comments come on the heels of another bloody weekend in the city, where 51 people were shot, six fatally, in 39 incidents around the city between Friday and Sunday.
Another seven people were wounded in separate incidents on Monday, Shea noted.
“It’s a very rough patch for sure,” Shea said. “We had started to see small incremental improvements. We took a step backwards this week, but its still full speed ahead.
“New Yorkers demand safe streets,” he added. “The NYPD wants to be a huge part of that with our partners and it’s something we are all working towards.”
As of Sunday, the NYPD saw a nearly 89% jump in shooting victims for the year, from 581 to 1,095. The number of homicides in the city also jumped by 30%, from 199 to 259, officials said.
Shootings in the city skyrocketed at the beginning of the summer, culminating in a bloody 4th of July weekend, where 41 people were shot, nine fatally, in one day. Police say most of the rampant violence is being sparked by street crews and gangs.
Shea said that the department is trying to get as many guns off the streets as possible but said the city’s courts need to be in lockstep with their efforts.
“We need consequences when we catch these people,” he said. “The gun arrests are a beautiful thing but the real important factor is what happens to those gun arrests — and that’s the question everyone needs to be asking.”
