New York City surpassed 1,000 shootings so far this year, already dwarfing last year’s total during the same time period.
New York Police Department data show that 1,004 shootings were logged as of Sunday compared to 537 shootings as of the same date in 2019, according to the New York Post. NYPD data also shows that a total of 776 people were shot during 2019.
This is the first time the city has reached the grim milestone of 1,000 shootings in a year since 2015, when 1,138 shootings were recorded in the course of the entire year.
“Mr. Mayor, it is time to stop calling New York the safest big city,” a Brooklyn officer told the New York Post, in reference to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s claim in December of 2019.
America’s largest city has witnessed 13 straight weeks of increased gun violence.
In one week in July, shootings surged by 176%, and 14 people were murdered by gun violence, compared to five during the same week in 2019.
In August, nearly 50 people were shot in a 72-hour span, leaving six people dead.
In addition to shootings, the city has experienced an uptick in other crimes such as robberies, including a 268% surge in Manhattan’s wealthy Upper East Side neighborhood.
Police have noted an uptick in crimes being committed in broad daylight. Last week, a man was seen on surveillance video ambushing and viciously beating a woman into a coma while trying to rip off her dress as she walked to work on a Brooklyn sidewalk during daytime hours.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has acknowledged the uptick in crime but pinned some of the responsibility on President Trump.
“Now, the genesis of the crime you can have a great debate about, but the Trump economy, Trump not providing COVID relief, the George Floyd murder, Trump’s response to the George Floyd murder, race relations stress, Trump, there are good people on both sides, Ku Klux Klan,” Cuomo, a Democrat, said in a teleconference in mid-August after admitting that crime is a “problem” in the city. “So, I think Trump has some liability for the increase in the crime.”
Trump has argued that the crime surge and high taxes in the state put him in a strong position to become the first Republican to carry the state of New York in the general election since Ronald Reagan in 1984.
“Over the last six months, what’s happened is insane,” Trump said in August about crime in New York City. “It’s insane. So we’re going to try very hard to win New York, and that will be the first time — is that since Ronald Reagan, I guess? Since Ronald Reagan.”
“Shootings are double, murders, everything has doubled and tripled,” Trump added. “And I’ve heard numbers, 244% on some kinds of crimes. What is it, 277% for shootings?”
“I’ll solve the crime problem,” he said.
