A 16-year-old man and a 17-year-old man were charged Saturday surrounding the Feb. 5 shooting of an off-duty officer of the New York City Police Department. The officer was shot in the foot while attending a vigil.
The NYPD announced the update in a tweet, writing that the two teenagers had been arrested and charged. At the time of the shooting, the off-duty police officer saw the two brandish their weapons and gave officers arriving at the scene a detailed description, according to Chief of Housing Jeffrey Maddrey.
The wounded officer did not immediately realize that he’d been shot, but later realized he had two wounds in his left foot. Maddrey assured reporters afterward that the injury wasn’t “too serious.”
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“This is our seventh police officer shot this year,” Maddrey said in a press conference following the shooting. “We’re thankful. I believe our whole city is grateful that this situation wasn’t worse.”
“Our gun violence has been increasing,” Maddrey said. “I’m just making a plea to all our communities, all of our citizens, our police, we all need to support one another. We shouldn’t have to live like this. We’re not supposed to live like this. This is the best city in the world, the greatest city in the world, and we shouldn’t have to suffer through gun violence. “
Chief of Detectives James Essig tweeted Friday that his department “apprehended 21 individuals want in connection with 20 acts of violence (10 murders and 10 non-fatal shootings), also seizing 4 guns in the process.”
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Meanwhile, murders citywide were down 15.2% in January, according to an NYPD report. Shooting incidents, however, increased by 31.6%.
Nationwide, the murder rate rose 30% between 2019 and 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That was the largest single-year increase since at least 1905, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the data. At the same time, only 36% approve of President Joe Biden’s job performance on the issue of crime.
