Forty-nine people were shot over the course of 72 hours in NYC between Thursday and Saturday, compared to eight shooting victims over the same time period last year, according to preliminary NYPD statistics sent to Gothamist Sunday morning.
Eight people were murdered—at least six by gun violence—compared to three homicides last year over those three days.
Those numbers do not yet reflect shootings on Sunday.
But about 2 a.m. Sunday, a 47-year-old was fatally shot in the head near Parkside and Ocean Avenues in Brooklyn at the entrance of Prospect Park.The man was the ninth person in NYC murdered since Thursday.
Those 49 shooting victims were shot in 38 separate incidents between August 13th and 15th, the police department said.
The number of shootings rose by nearly five times—from eight to 38—compared to the same dates last year.
All told, there have been 1,087 shooting victims across 888 incidents this year through August 15th, compared to 577 victims and 488 incidents last year. Homicides were up to 263 through Saturday, compared to 196 this time last year, police said Sunday.
Shootings have soared throughout the summer amid the COVID-19 health and economic crises, adding additional suffering to a pandemic that has killed more than 23,500 people in NYC.
Shooting incidents for last week were two-and-a-half times that of the same week in 2019, the Post reported. Last month, shootings rose 177 percent, from 88 in July 2019 to 244 in July 2020, according to crime statistics from the department released August 3rd.
In an attempt to quell the violence, the city has responded with more funding for cure violence groups and neighborhood policing. The cure violence groups function by placing community members on the ground who attempt to mediate violence before it happens and prevent retaliation after a shooting occurs.
But activists within anti-gun violence groups say the groups do not have adequate funding and a more well-rounded plan is needed to combat the rise in shootings, though such solutions aren't easy or quick. "I always say to folks, we have 36,000 police officers and about 300 cure violence workers," Ife Charles, the director of anti-violence projects and capacity building for Save Our Streets Bed-Stuy, said earlier this summer at a press conference with de Blasio.
Ten people in Brooklyn were charged with firearms possession in Brooklyn earlier this month, according to Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Seth D. DuCharme.
"The one tried and true way to reduce the rapid spike in gun violence we’ve experienced in Brooklyn this summer is to take the guns out of the hands of repeat offenders and take those offenders off of our streets," he said in a statement.