It’s looking like a long, hot summer already.
Shootings spiked in the Big Apple last week by a whopping 50% compared to the same period last year – and the number of gunshot victims spiked by an even higher margin, NYPD stats show.
The data show that 30 people were struck in two dozen shootings across the five boroughs in the week ending on Sunday, a jump from the 18 gunshot victims in 16 incidents over the same span in 2023.
And that’s just part of a month-long pattern that has seen an uptick in gun violence.
“The summer hasn’t even officially started yet it’s already getting out of hand,” one Brooklyn cop told The Post. “Everyone has a gun and the shooters are getting younger. That’s a bad formula for fighting crime.”
Over the past month, the NYPD has recorded 117 victims in 98 shootings, up from 81 people shot in 74 incidents over the same month in 2023 – a 44% rise in victims and 32% bump in shootings.
“It’s that time of year,” Christopher Hermann, a former NYPD crime analyst and an assistant professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice specializing in gun violence said Wednesday.
“The weather is getting hotter, kids are getting out of school, more people are taking vacation – all of these things are part of it,” Hermann said. “It’s just what tends to happen. My guess is you’ll see a couple more shootings today or tomorrow.”
On Sunday three people were killed and four others wounded in five separate Father’s Day shootings.
Police said a 44-year-old man was shot in the face, a 40-year-old man in the chest and a 37-year-old man struck in the leg in a single shooting in Inwood on Sunday night – with the older two dying.
That came about a half hour after Tyreek Ogarro, 32, was shot multiple times at the Brevoort Houses public housing complex in Bedford-Stuyvesant and later died at Kings County Hospital, cops said.
On Saturday night, two people were shot inside Livonia Park in Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood – a 53-year-old woman hit in the leg and torso and a man, 70, hit in the left leg, according to police.
It was one of five shootings during the course of the day.
On June 11, an armed bystander shot a 39-year-old man who was menacing street food vendors with a knife in Midtown Manhattan, pulling the gun and firing as the scuffle escalated.
The victim was hit in the leg and survived.
The day before an 84-year-old woman sitting in her walker in East Flatbush was hit by a stray bullet and in her left arm and rushed to the hospital – where she was treated for non-life-threateniing injuries.
“It’s a miracle,” victim Althea Lawson told The Post from her hospital bed. “I don’t have enough tongue to tell God thanks I’m still here today. Thank God it never hit me in the head!”
Despite the recent spike in gunplay, most major crimes have dipped in the Big Apple over last year, including a nearly 15% dip in murders so far this year compared to 2023.
Police stats show that there were 157 murders reported through Sunday, down from 184 over the same period last year, while burglaries were down nearly 10% and car thefts dropped by 10.5%.
Year-to-date shootings were also down slightly, with 465 victims wounded in 392 incidents through Sunday compared to 494 people hit in 423 shootings over the same period last year.
However, other crimes have crept upward in the past year, including rapes, which are up to 734 from 583 this time last year and robberies, which have risen to 7,505 this year compared to 7,120 at the same time last year – jumps of 7.5% and 5.4%, respectively.
Felony assaults are also up, with 12,950 so far in 2024 and 12,252 at this time in 2023.
