Mayoral candidate Maya Wiley called Sunday for greater mental health funding a day after a Times Square shooting that left a four-year-old child and two women injured.
Though gun violence has been surging in recent months across the Big Apple, Saturday afternoon’s shooting at the Crossroads of the World seemed to hit a nerve throughout the five boroughs. Images of Times Square of civilians running and police officers running toward the danger only intensified concerns among many New Yorkers about the efforts being made to stop the shootings.
Leaving a Mother’s Day religious service at Brooklyn’s Lenox Road Baptist Church, Wiley described her outrage over the incident as a mother.
“What we know is that we are not sufficiently tackling gun violence in our communities, in our city. Violent crime is up, and public safety is job one. Just like yesterday — the day before Mother’s Day — three people shot in Times Square, a four-year-old. But this not new, and it is not new to me,” Wiley said.
