New York City mayor insists city can get grip on rash of shootings
New York Police Department officers stand nearby July 7, 2020, as Black Lives Matter Protests continue in New York City.
(The Center Square) – New York Mayor Bill de Blasio continued to promote community policing as an effective tool to curb violence on Tuesday even as shootings stay on the rise in the city.
Those remarks come just a day after at least 17 people were shot Monday, according to the New York Post.
That rash comes after 15 were shot on Sunday, including a 1-year-old boy who eventually died. The New York City Police are offering up to a $10,000 reward for information on the killer of Davell Gardner Jr. Police say that individual shot three others in the attack in Bedford-Stuyvesant
The mayor said he met with Gardner’s mom, aunt and grandmother on Monday, and while he felt their grief, de Blasio said he saw a Brooklyn community that wants to take back its streets.
“We talked about what we have to do to end the shootings, particularly what we need to do coming up on this weekend to bring the community out, to occupy the corners, just like we did in Harlem on Saturday night,” he said. “This is a strategy that works. It’s not the end-all, be-all, but it’s part of the solution.”
While de Blasio doubles down on the community-minded approach, he told reporters Tuesday that he’s not yet ready to make changes as the summer shooting surge continues. That includes not bringing back the plainclothes anti-crime units.
All NYPD officers are involved in anti-crime activities, de Blasio said, and the unit that Commissioner Dermot Shea broke up last month made up just a few hundred officers among a force of about 36,000.
“The leadership of today’s NYPD understands that you cannot create a city that gets safer and safer without full participation of the community, and so if, if a particular approach is hindering that you got to find a new approach,” de Blasio said.
De Blasio also isn’t ready to reinstate a cadet class that was canceled as part of the recently enacted city budget, even though a higher than usual number of cops are opting now to retire. He added that he understands police officers have been under very trying circumstances during COVID-19 as the rest of the justice system is not working.
And, especially since the protests against police violence, de Blasio said officers have felt a lot of criticism but deserve respect.
“You’ve got to also remember the human beings who are doing the work and are protecting us,” he said.
