The New York City Police Department confirmed that 22 people have been shot over the Father’s Day weekend, including several deaths.
Police said a man was shot and killed on East 12th Street near Avenue C in Manhattan, according to ABC7.
NYPD officials told the station that two other fatal shootings occurred in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn. A man walking down Milford Street approaching another man who was washing his car before opening fire and killing him, according to the report.
In another incident in Brooklyn on Saturday, police found a 29-year-old with a gunshot wound outside of 203 Montauk Avenue in East New York, reported the New York Post and other news outlets. The man told officers that he was watching fireworks when he felt a sharp pain in his leg before realizing that he had been shot.
Officials told CBS New York that 19 people were shot in the 24-hour span between 12 a.m. on Saturday and 12 a.m. on Sunday.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said that more resources will be used to stop the violence, despite his pledge to cut funding to the NYPD.
“We are going to put more and more resources into the Cure Violence movement and the Crisis Management System, which has proven to be extraordinarily effective in stopping gun violence before it happens and mediating conflicts,” de Blasio said, according to the ABC affiliate.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams noted that in May, the city has seen a “25 percent” increase “in homicides,” as reported by ABC7
“This is extremely alarming and concerning during a time where we are really pushing to end violence in our city and our communities, to have 19 people shot, 13 shootings is something we need take extremely seriously,” Adams said, reported CBS NY.
The surge in violence comes as NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said the department will eliminate its plainclothes anti-crime units and will transfer those personnel to detective assignments and neighborhood policing.
“Thankfully, here in New York City, angry demonstrations have turned peaceful. Thoughtful discussions about reform have emerged,” Shea said during a news conference. “We welcome reform, but we also believe that meaningful reform starts from within,” he told reporters.
Shea’s decision came after several nights of unrest, demonstrations, arson attacks, vandalism, and looting in the wake of George Floyd’s death.
Both de Blasio and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, meanwhile, have both called for police reforms but both have stopped short of saying that police departments should be defunded or abolished, as some far-left activists have sought.
Anyone who has information regarding about the fatal shooting in East New York should call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-8477 or for Spanish, 1-888-577-4782.
Focus News: 22 People Shot Over the Weekend in New York, NYPD Says
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