Guns n' students

CBS News 

 There was a shocking discovery after metal detectors were sent to a Queens high school one day after a brazen daylight shooting that left three teenagers injured.

Now, Mayor Eric Adams is taking action, ordering his precinct commanders and top NYPD brass to attend an unusual weekend meeting, CBS2's Marcia Kramer reported Thursday.

One top NYPD official described the meeting at police headquarters this Saturday as a "beat down." The mayor's spokesman told Kramer only that his boss regards himself as a general who intends to lead from the front.

But for many of us, the number of weapons found at Francis Lewis High School on Thursday was astounding.

"The weapons count went to over 20 and they're still counting. I know they have a stun gun and pepper spray from one student, have a lot of knives," Teamsters Local 237 President Gregory Floyd said.

Students at Francis Lewis High in Fresh Meadows had to wait on long lines and take directions from school safety agents on Thursday, following the stunning daylight shooting that left three students wounded, including a 14-year-old Asian girl who was shot in the neck, has a bullet lodged in her spine, and still hasn't regained consciousness.

Police sources said a group of students, many from Francis Lewis High, were walking home on 188th Street. The occupant of a silver sedan began shouting at the kids, police say, and then a man got out of the car and opened fire.

"It's not happening in the middle of the night. It's happening in the afternoon, on a busy street, in a busy area where kids congregate after school," Fresh Meadows parent George Douveas said.

The mayor was outraged both about the shooting and the cache of weapons found at the school.

"There should be no doubt that keeping New York City safe is my top priority," he told CBS2, adding, "It is unacceptable for prohibited items to be taken to school."

Queens Chronicle

Three teens were shot walking on 188th Street near 64th Avenue at approximately 4:10 p.m. Wednesday afternoon.

The three victims — a 14-year-old girl and two 18-year-old boys — were walking in a group of 10 to 12 other teenagers, Deputy Inspector Kevin Chan of the 107th Precinct estimated, when the shooter, who had been double parked on the block, approached the group. An argument ensued, and shots were fired at the teens. The 14-year-old was shot in the neck, one of the 18-year-olds in the right hip and the other in the right calf, Chan said.

According to the NYPD press office, the girl is stable but critical and the two boys are stable. Chan, the precinct’s commander, said all are expected to survive.

Wednesday’s incident comes amid a recent uptick in crime in northeastern Queens — generally among the safer parts of the borough. In late March, northeast Queens saw two shooting incidents within the span of a week: one outside a party at a foreclosed house in Bayside, which squatters had been renting out on Airbnb, the other near Cardozo High School, and just days later. The latter involved at least three Cardozo students. On April 16, a woman was robbed and assaulted in the parking lot of the Oakland Gardens Key Food. The shooting Wednesday is the second the 107th Precinct has had this year; it had five all of last year. 

At this time, little is known about the perpetrator. Chan said that his age is not known and that he fled the scene in a gray BMW; the motive is unknown. It is also unclear whether the teens who were shot are the same ones who argued with the shooter, nor  if the group were all walking together, or if they just happened to be in the same place at the same time.

“It’s still early,” Chan said. “We’re trying to do our interviews, trying to, obviously, interview everyone that was there.”

Both Chan and Assemblymember Nily Rozic (D-Fresh Meadows), however, were able to confirm that two of the victims — the 14-year-old and one of the 18-year-olds — attend Francis Lewis High School, a 12-minute walk from the scene.

Thursday afternoon, two school safety vehicles were parked outside the main entrance on Utopia Parkway, and students could be seen lined up outside the school; Rozic said that was because their bags were being searched as they entered the building.

Rozic, Councilmember Linda Lee (D-Oakland Gardens) and Councilman Jim Gennaro (D-Hillcrest) issued a joint statement on the incident late Wednesday evening. In addition to wishing the victims a speedy recovery and thanking the first responders on the scene, the group emphasized the need to take on gun violence. 

“Given recent events including shootings and assaults in neighboring communities, we understand the growing concerns about public safety in Northeast Queens and are calling for a renewed commitment from all levels of government to tackle the rising gun violence across New York City,” the statement reads.

Big Trouble In Little Guyana

 

Impunity City 

 So this happened on a Sunday in broad daylight on the first day of Spring in New York City. Two men causing a ruckus on a street corner at Lefferts Blvd. and Liberty Ave yelling at each other about a money dispute that nearly got even more violent and bloody when one man pulled out what looked like a 24 inch bike chain and the other man retaliated by whipping out a very polished and sharpened meat cleaver in an attempt to defeat his foe and stain it and the pavement with his blood.

1990 crime time revisited

 Queens Post

Armed robberies, vicious assaults and hate crimes have become all too common in New York City in recent months and the borough of Queens is no exception.

There have been brutal attacks at subway stations, shootings at NYCHA complexes, to a rash of anti-Asian hate crimes.

For the year-to-date through Feb. 27, there has been a 58 percent increase in crime across the borough, compared to the same period a year ago. There has been a big spike in both violent crimes as well as property theft, such as grand larcenies and auto theft.

There have been 11 murders in Queens this year through Feb. 27, compared to nine for the same period a year ago. Meanwhile, there were 65 rapes reported through Feb. 27 compared to 48 for the same period in 2021. Additionally, there were 460 robberies reported this year through Feb. 27 vs. 311 last year, and 683 felony assaults compared to 567 the previous year.

No area in the borough has been spared, with all 16 precincts in Queens experiencing an increase in crime. The eight precincts in Queens North were up a collective 66 percent through Feb. 27, with significant increases in the 110 precinct, which covers Corona and Elmhurst, up a whopping 133 percent, and the 109 precinct, which covers Flushing, up 89 percent.

Meanwhile the eight precincts in Queens South were collectively up 48 percent for the year through Feb. 27, with notable increases in the 107 precinct, which covers Fresh Meadows, up 105 percent, and the 106 precinct in Ozone Park up 78 percent.

Queens has reached a level of grand larcenies not seen in 30 years

NY Post 

Queens is being hit hard by a dramatic surge in thefts this year — almost topping levels not seen since the NYPD started compiling statistics decades ago — and business owners are calling on cops to step up.

As of last Sunday, the borough had recorded 1,236 grand larcenies in 2022, which is only a few dozen shy of the tally logged during the same period in 1993, the earliest for which records are available, when 1,326 major thefts occurred, a Post analysis of police data shows.

A store manager of JMart on Main Street in Flushing told The Post his store loses up to $2,000 on any given day.

“I’ve never seen it like this before,” the manager, Lee said. “Maybe it’s the pandemic. It’s bad. Before you’d have one or two [ shoplifters] per week but now it’s like almost every day.”

This year’s tally is more than double what it was in the same time period last year and more than 40 percent over what it was two years ago. It’s also 75 percent more than 12 years ago. 

While grand larcenies have been up citywide, with police data showing a more than 60 percent uptick from last year and a 6 percent increase from pre-pandemic times, businesses owners in just a few Queens neighborhoods have been disproportionately hit harder.

Nearly half of the major thefts in the borough have been recorded in only three of the county’s 16 patrol areas.

This is deBlastopia

 

 Impunity City

 The Blaz era is finally and mercifully over but his contribution to the New Bad Days will go down in history as the greatest regression of New York City in 50 years and will surely continue to plague this town for years to come.

 

New Bad Days: The Boroughs Are Bleeding

 

Impunity City

 New Yorkers are vaccinated in record numbers. The Summer of NYC is here; there’s no better time to visit, and we’ll continue to cheer on our city’s recovery”

                                                        Deputy Press Secretary for Bill de Blasio, Mitch Schwartz

Here we go again, Mitch. Stupid asshole.

 In Mount Eden, a man chased another man with a gun on the sidewalk in a gang related attack. While being goaded by his fellow gangbangers to slay him in broad daylight, the gunman’s target ran directly into a 13-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy as they were about to enter a bodega to buy candy as he tried to find a place to hide and then he fell on top of them, causing them to fall on the pavement with him. Then the gunman circled around and stood over the man and the two kids and shot at him 12 times while trying to shoot around the children as if he was doing heart surgery. Then he ran away and got on the back of a scooter and rode away with an accomplice after he emptied his clip. The gangbanger managed to hit his target on both legs and plugged him on the back. The victim was brought to a hospital by his allies in a stolen car with temp plates.

 

In Times Square, a man with a gun ran down the sidewalk and shot at a group of men and missed, causing the bullet to ricochet off a building wall and hit a man in the arm who was standing outside of a hotel with his wife and relatives.

Because the unwitting victim is a Marine and the son of a retired military officer/intelligence official and being that it was the second shooting incident in less than a month in the Square, The Blaz and Chief Harrison wasted no time and decided to “flood the zone” with another deployment of 50 cops in the biggest and most precious tourist attraction in the world. 

Despite the bigger and redundant police presence, tourists are cognizant of the predominant crime wave and even more wary of walking on the streets in the vicinity. Although if there’s any consolation for the Blaz, some tourists seem to find the disturbing rise of violent criminal activity as a new novelty attraction.

 

New Bad Days 85

 

 

 Impunity City

 Mayor de Blasio’s recovery for all of us since spring started has not gone as well as he planned. Because the only recovery that has occurred since the temps got higher is the recovery of felonious crimes and wanton senseless violence. None more pronounced than the steady and now daily rises in random and intentional crimes on the subway, now up by 93%, and the plague of shootings on the streets of New York, now up by 73% from last year.  While it is a massive difference because of the “perfect storm of COVID, it’s now worse while the city is in recovery and all social distancing bans are lifted and people are gathering on the streets and commuting more.

While subway crime and shootings have been getting more and more local media attention as the Blaz continues not to acknowledge it (which will need a whole thesis or even a long form post to cover it), other felonious crimes that also rose 20% or more over the year have fallen off the radar, like burglary, robbery, grand larceny, rape, assault and battery and auto theft. The only crime that didn’t go down (but still stayed steady) was homicide, although that’s mostly because these people can’t hit their targets for shit, which is the only good news that’s going on these turbulent new bad days.

Brooklyn woman sick of de Blasio's denials about subway crime

The aunt of subway Conductor Gerard Sykes who was brutally slashed on the J train last night has a message for @NYCMayor — Do something! Put more police in the subway, Casandra Sykes pleads. @CentralLaborNYC @NYPDTransit @NYCPBA @NYSAFLCIO @SecretaryPete #EssentialWorkers pic.twitter.com/wSJwdolQwZ

— TWU Local 100 (@TWULocal100) May 6, 2021

Maybe more painting and dancing on the subway might help... 

The Blaz's recovery for all of us is being trumped by the new bad days.

New Bad Days 83: The Ides Of March bring more violent hate towards Asians and gun, gang and subway violence to NYC

  

Impunity City

 Has de Blasio, Speaker Cojo and the NY Council fauxgressive cronies ever given the thought that the reason Rikers is making C.O.’s work triple shifts is because solitary confinement has been cancelled and the only way to tamp down violence and keep order is to keep C.O.’s on duty for every minute and second that way they can justify these new supposed progressive policies? Even though it’s clearly not working? Even Jeff Bezos lets his Amazon FFC employees go home.

And while this FUBAR management is going on at Rikers, where is the NYC Jails Commissioner? Whose conspicuous absence after de Blasio put her on medical leave following the release of a fugitive killer that’s still on the loose has made her virtually unobtainable for comment?

Shootings and guns on the streets rise again

 

QNS

 The NYPD’s crime statistics for October revealed a predicted increase in shooting incidents and gun crimes as compared to 2019, while homicide rates showed a slight decrease.

Citywide shooting incidents saw a 121 percent increase, with 137 citywide shootings this year compared to last year’s 62. On a year-to-date analysis these figures remark a 93.9 percent spike of 1,299 through Oct. 31, 2020, compared to 2019’s 670. Gun arrests for the month of October leapt by 102 percent from 248 in 2019 to 502 in 2020, with an increase in every borough and with the year-to-date tally up 15 percent.

Murders for the month of October fell from 36 in 2019 to 35 in 2020, while on a year-to-date analysis homicides are up 37 percent for the first 10 months of 2020 compared to 2019.

Last night one fatal shooting occurred in a public housing complex in Upper Manhattan, while two other shooting incidents related to automobile theft both occurred in the Bronx.

The NYPD made mention of the unique circumstance of the coronavirus pandemic as having a part to play in the city’s increases in shootings and gun crime, while commentators continue to ascribe part of the blame for the city’s increase in gun bloodshed to peaks in gang-related activity and bail reform.

 Impunity City

In Ozone Park, a homeless man shot a bodega store clerk to death after the worker kicked him out of the store for being a nuisance and he returned with a gun from the car he was living in that was parked across the street. As the man was about to shoot the other clerk, an off-duty cop tackled him to the floor.

 

1,000

NY Post

The Big Apple is set to hit more grim milestones, with the number of shootings and gun victims so far this year set to match figures for same period the past two years — combined.

There have been 821 shootings and 1,000 gun victims as of Saturday.

Last year for same time frame, there were 466 shootings and 551 victims, while in 2018, there were 449 incidents and 548 victims.

That means combined, there were 905 shooting incidents and 1,099 victims for time period in 2018 and 2019 — close to the totals for this year alone, according to statistics released by the NYPD on Sunday.

New York City's New Bad Days are here as more shootings and illegal fireworks are reported

Impunity City

 During the last two months of the lockdown of the five boroughs and with a sizeable amount of cops stricken by COVID-19, home and commercial property burglaries and vehicle theft shot up in massive numbers in May as murders and robberies show higher incremental ticks. Crime in the subway made significant gains even though service is cut and commuting went down nearly 90%.  

Shootings went up by a lot (especially in Brooklyn) which shouldn’t be surprising considering you can be more than six feet to hit your target. Drag racing also went up in the last 3 months as the city was mostly barren from mass isolation.
 
As May began Governor Cuomo gave the order to kick the homeless off the trains including banning every other commuter from the subway at 1 am until the clock struck 5 so the trains can get thoroughly cleaned..Which had no effect with the homeless who prefer to sleep during the morning and noon hours as the lower paid contractors deftly cleaned around them. 

 And that's only a sample of NYC's Spring of chaos and disorder...

NY Post

 Bullets are whizzing around New York this month at a rate not seen in nearly a quarter-century, according to the NYPD — and police sources warned that the recent rate of gunplay may be the new normal.
Through the first three weeks of June, which came to a close Sunday, city streets echoed with 125 shooting incidents, Chief of Crime Control Strategies Michael LiPetri told The Post on Monday.
“We have to go back to June of 1996 to get a worse start for June,” said LiPetri. “That is a telling stat.”
Twenty-four years ago, Rudy Giuliani was mayor and, while the city had made strides in tamping down crime, Gotham still saw 2,938 people shot and 984 killed.
Although overall crime citywide remains down 2.5 percent for the year, shootings, already trending up this year, exploded in June.
From Monday, June 15, through Sunday, there were 53 shooting incidents across the city, the highest mark for a single week since Mayor Bill de Blasio took office.
The last time the city recorded that many shootings in a week was around July 4, 2012, according to police sources.
But to find a nonholiday week — which tends to be quieter — with that many shootings, the department had to look all the way back to 2005, according to LiPetri.
“This weekend we also saw real challenges out in our streets in terms of gun violence,” said de Blasio in a press briefing, remarking on the blood-soaked stretch that included 24 people shot citywide Saturday.
“We are not going to allow gun violence to continue to grow in this city,” vowed Hizzoner.


Gothamist

 As thundering firework displays continue to shoot through New York City's skies, they're trailed by a boom in complaints about the illegal use of pyrotechnics. From Washington Heights to Ditmas Park, weary residents say they've been pushed to the brink by screeching explosions that begin before sundown and last well into the morning.

According to city data, 849 complaints about fireworks were logged with the city's 311 hotline in the last two weeks alone. That's a nearly 4,000 percent increase from the same period in 2019, which saw just 21 recorded complaints. In the first two weeks of June during the previous five years, there were less than 50 complaints related to fireworks in total.

As with other 311 data, it's not clear that the figures reflect an actual spike in activity. In many cases, the growth of nuisance calls is a better barometer of gentrification than any specific change in behavior. But while illicit fireworks have long served as the sonic backdrop to summer nights in NYC, some residents say the intensity and frequency has been noticeably greater in 2020, with many of the late-night displays appearing strangely professional.

"There’s something louder, longer, and crazier about it that’s weird," said Phoebe Streblow, a Flatbush resident. "Just the sheer cost alone of these productions is suspect. They're about the size of fireworks at a minor league ballpark."

Felony crimes made big jumps this year in the "Safest Big City", especially in the "World's Borough"

Newsday

New York City experienced its worst January for serious crime in five years, according to NYPD data set for release Tuesday and expected to show an ongoing spike that department officials attribute to the state's new bail reform law.


The latest Compstat data through Feb. 2, shows that total overall serious felonies — such as homicide, burglary, robbery and auto theft — are up 16.4% over the same period in 2019. The increase is 6% when compared to 2015, the data shows.


After years of steady declines in crime, the city has seen double digit increases in burglaries, grand larcenies and auto theft — the latter up 70% over 2019 — since Jan. 1. Robberies and felonious assaults saw single digit increases. A positive trend within the data shows homicides down nearly 20% since the same period last year and a decrease in rapes by 18%, according to the latest data.

 In January, serious felonies citywide continued to rise throughout the month. NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea is scheduled to talk about the overall upward trend Tuesday during his monthly crime briefing. He is again expected to call on the legislature in Albany to tinker with the bail law, which took effect Jan. 1. The new law eliminates bail for most nonviolent crimes.

Ridgewood Post

Crime across the city and in the borough of Queens jumped significantly in the first month of 2020 — which top NYPD brass attributes to bail reform.


Major crimes spiked 20 percent in the first 26 days of the year in Patrol Borough Queens North — which includes Long Island City, Sunnyside, Astoria, Jackson Heights, Ridgewood, Forest Hills and Flushing — as compared to the same period in 2019.


There were 758 serious crimes from Jan. 1 through Jan. 26, 2020 in Queens North; up from 629 during the same period in 2019, according to NYPD data.
Major crimes climbed 31 percent for the same 26-day period from the year prior in Patrol Borough 

Queens South — which includes the Rockaways, Jamaica, Queens Village and south. There were 712 crimes committed from Jan. 1 through Jan. 26, 2020; up from 543 in 2019, according to NYPD data.

Queens Chronicle

 
Days before a new civilian patrol was set to begin in the neighborhood, a 60-year-old man was robbed and severely beaten in broad daylight in the Cityline section of Ozone Park that borders on Brooklyn.

Graphic photos of the victim, Shahab Uddin, bleeding profusely from the face, posted on Facebook sparked residents to call an emergency meeting of the Ozone Park Residents Block Association this week to deal with what they are characterizing as a neighborhood “crime wave.”

“The brutality of this crime really got to me,” Sam Esposito, head of the OPRBA and a former police officer, told the Chronicle.


Uddin was walking home from Liberty Avenue on 76th Street at around 11 a.m. Sunday when he was attacked from behind by a lone assailant who beat him and stole his cell phone and wallet, his family said.


He has been hospitalized since then, unconscious with severe facial wounds and bruises, according to Esposito.


It is the second time in three months someone in the largely Bangladeshi community near the border with Brooklyn has been badly beaten in an unprovoked attack.


In November, a man on his way to work was set upon by a group of young men at the elevated A-train station at Liberty Avenue and 80th Street, a few blocks from the site of Sunday’s assault.


That attack spawned a neighborhood rally that drew several hundred people to protest what was called poor police coverage in a crime-prone section of Ozone Park.


Crime has “been going up over the last 18 months and we knew it,” said Esposito.


The most recent crime stats seem to bear him out.


In January, when crime citywide rose sharply, the 106th Precinct — which covers Ozone Park and Howard Beach — saw robberies jump 58 percent over last year. Felonious assaults were up 57 percent.

Although the bail reform laws are a major factor in this precipitous rise in crime, the New Bad Days have been here for quite some time.