Despite a weekend of shootings in Brooklyn that culminated with five people being shot in Red Hook Monday night, Mayor Bill de Blasio continued to note that crime is down for the year.
“Look at the facts and stop the hysteria. At this point, overall crime is down approximately 6 percent from last year,” said de Blasio in a press conference following the Red Hook shootings that included multiple wounds to a young pregnant woman who lost her unborn child in the shooting.
Police say an SUV pulled up to 9A Dwight Street in Red Hook, where friends were waiting for food to be delivered. Two men jumped out of the vehicle and opened fire, hitting three, 19-year-old women and two, twenty-year-old men multiple times.
Red Hook City Councilman Carlos Menchaca told KCP that after spending the morning following the shootings in the neighborhood checking in with shaken residents and local leaders, his resolve to fight violent crime has only intensified.
“We can organize to ensure that this never happens again. Everyone is clear: we need to unite as a community and focus on the safety and security on our streets, especially for our young people,” said Menchaca.
This past week, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and Council Member Jumaane Williams, stood outside of Brooklyn Borough Hall to advocate for the necessity of unification within communities in order to put a halt to the gun violence.
Adams asked the city to allocate $10 millions for non- profit organizations, which he believes will fix things. At the same time, de Blasio believes this is all “hysteria.”
The latest official statistics in the 76th Precinct, which covers Gowanus, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill and Red Hook, show a 133 percent increase of shootings for the year – seven to three – as of July 26 of 2014. This excludes Monday’s shootings.
Additionally, burglary in the precinct is up nearly 64 percent for the year and robbery is up 18 percent.
While de Blasio rightly pointed out overall felony crime is down citywide nearly 6 percent for the year, murder is up nearly 11 percent, and both shooting incidents and shooting victims are up slightly for the year.
