New York City shootings over the last seven days skyrocketed by 142 percent compared with the same time period in 2019, from just 26 last year to 63 in 2020, according to NYPD data obtained by News 4.
For several weeks now, gun violence has more than doubled on New York City streets with some 24-hour periods recording dozens of New Yorkers sustaining injuries from gunfire. Take the hours following the 4th of July holiday; the NYPD said gun violence in a nine-hour window resulted in the deaths of three people and left nearly three dozen people injured.
In the lead up to the holiday weekend, three people were shot in Brownsville, including one that died from a gunshot to the head. At least seven more shootings in the city late Thursday night and into early Friday morning. In three separate drive-by shootings before midnight, a teen in Crown Heights was shot in the buttocks; a man in Far Rockaway was shot in the torso; and a man was shot in the torso in Mott Haven, according to the NYPD.
The surge in gun violence impacting those of all ages, as an 11-year-old boy was on his porch when a bullet tore through his leg in an unrelated shooting on Tuesday – becoming one of nine shot throughout the five boroughs in a 24-hour span ending Wednesday.
The week prior, June 21-27, shootings recorded by police increased by 127 percent from 2019 to 2020. And the week before that, June 14-20, there were 55 shootings in 2020 compared to just 12 the same week in 2019, NYPD data shows; that's a 358 percent increase. A total of 74 people were wounded in the 55 shootings with at least 19 of them injured in a single day.
Gun violence has taken the lives of New Yorkers in a city already rocked by a pandemic virus and violent protests over police brutality.
Some of the youngest victims include recent high school graduate and basketball star 17-year-old Brandon Hendricks. He was shot and killed June 28.
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One day prior, two people were gunned down by a suspect with an AR-15 in the middle of the day. Police said Charles Hernandez, 47, shot Chioteke Thompson, 23, and Stephanie Perkins, 39, just after 12 p.m. in Brooklyn.
19-year-old Erica Lopez of Connecticut was shot and killed steps away from Madison Square Park just after midnight that same day. A few hours earlier, on June 26, a 7-year-old girl was grazed by gunfire when a fight broke out nearby in East Harlem.
The rise in shootings has exceeded a troubling trend that started earlier this year but there has been no clear reason why the number has skyrocketed. The increase comes on the heels of NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea disbanding an anti-crime plainclothes unit that had focused on stopping people and searching for guns.
