One man is dead in the Bronx, another wounded in Brooklyn in separate shootings overnight to this morning, just as President Donald Trump is discussing deploying federal cops to the city to battle rising crime.
Several other shootings were reported in three boroughs, but there were no reports of any other people being hit by bullets.
The shootings come as the NYPD has been pressuring gangs and providing higher visibility patrols in many of the city’s hot spots. In addition, officials are wary that President Trump will make good on his word to send in federal police officers into the city as he has done in Portland Oregon where demonstrations, looting, and vandalism of government buildings have become rampant.
Commissioner Dermot Shea, however, said on CNN this morning they have more than enough resources to tamp down crime in the city. Shea acknowledged that “we (the NYPD) work closely with our federal partners every day.”
Officials also stated that the addition of 500 MTA cops and state police have not hindered crime fighting but augmented it.
Mayor Bill de Blasio called Trump’s statements “political” and said he would fight any deployment of federal officers to the city in court if necessary.
During his Tuesday interview with CNN, Shea complained that more than 2,000 people arrested for gun possession continue to walk the streets because of the failure of the courts to operate and indict those people causing the most violence in the city.
The NYPD says shootings are up more than 70% since last year and murders are up 40%. Other crime categories including burglaries and car theft have also risen to very high levels, officials said.
“The obstacles we face have been well-chronicled – we need the court system open and we can’t have people put right back on the street after we arrest them,” Shea said. “We don’t have grand juries operational. We need to restore confidence in the justice system that those we arrest will not be released right away. But we don’t want to dwell on our obstacles but instead roll up our sleeves and concentrate on what we are doing to get out of this and turn the tide. If you carry a gun, we will prosecute you and if you doing it while driving a car, we will take that too.”
In the meantime, a 24-year-old man was shot to death at 11:44 p.m. Monday in front of 3340 Decatur Ave. in the Bronx. Police from the 52nd Precinct found the man unconscious and unresponsive. EMS rushed him to Montefiore Hospital, but he could not be saved.
There were no arrests or a description of the suspect in the case.
In a separate shooting at 3:20 a.m. Tuesday, a 19-year-old man was in the ankle at 105 River St. in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He was taken by private means to a hospital in stable condition. The shooting is under investigation by the 94th Precinct.
Shea vowed Tuesday that the city will not go back to the “bad old days of the 80s.”
“I am born and raised in New York City and after 30 years of policing, I know we have the best police department in the world,” Shea said. “We are using different strategies and it is a tough time for a lot of reasons. But we are coming out of that we are thinking consistently how to keep New York safe. In the past, we have used strategies that have kept crime down, but then, we looked around standing by ourselves at the podium if you will – we really have opportunities and the have best leaders in the world and we will keep this city safe.”
The battle against rising crime comes as Brooklyn prepares to bury a 1-year-old child struck on July 12 by bullets while sitting in a stroller in Bedford Stuyvesant. Three others were also wounded.
