Shootings surge in NYC — with potential for long, bloody summer ahead
Shootings have surged across New York City by more than 68 percent so far in 2021, according to new NYPD crime statistics — with the typically bloody summer months still to come.
Through Sunday, the five boroughs had seen 602 shooting incidents in 2021, wounding or killing 687 victims, the CompStat figures show.
By comparison, the city logged 358 shootings striking 409 people through the same point in 2020 — a year that saw New York surpass its 2019 shooting total by early August.
The latest spate of gunplay includes the fatal shooting of Justin Wallace, a 10-year-old Queens boy killed Saturday in his aunt’s Far Rockaway home, possibly as collateral damage in a long-running beef over a shared driveway.
Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday decried the senseless slaying, but warned that the city is “going to be dealing with a major challenge” for the remainder of the year.
Gun violence has surged on the year even ahead of the hot summer months, when shootings typically rise with the mercury.
In 2020, shootings nearly doubled from April to May — 56 to 100 — before more than doubling from May to June, 100 to 205, The Post previously reported.
The latest stats show signs that the warm-weather spike may be beginning, with 153 shooting incidents encompassing 184 victims in the 28-day period ending Sunday.
By comparison, the same period in 2020 saw 116 shootings striking 134 victims, increases of 31.9 and 37.3 percent, respectively, the data shows.
Among the seven major “index crimes” tracked by the department, four have seen increases so far in 2021, compared to the same point last year: grand larceny auto, murder, felony assault and rape.
The other three — burglary, robbery and grand larceny — are down, with a 24.6 percent plunge in burglaries helping drive an overall 2.7 percent drop in index crime.
Amid the surge in shootings, gun arrests are up 28.4 percent on the year, with 2,003 through Sunday, compared to 1,560 to the same point last year.
Though gun busts ebbed over the past 28 days, with a 16.7 percent drop, the NYPD rebounded in the week ending Sunday with 90 such arrests, up 36.4 percent from the 66 logged in the same period last year.
Meanwhile, the year’s disturbing spike in hate crimes continued.
So far this year, the NYPD has designated 260 incidents as hate crimes, up a stunning 111.4 percent from the 123 to the same point in 2020.
That includes an even more jarring 382.4 percent surge over the past four weeks, with 82 bias incidents logged compared to 17 last year.
Among the incidents over the past month are attacks against Jews amid flaring tensions between Israel and Hamas, and assaults on Asians, continuing a troubling trend persisting throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
