NYPD Commissioner: De Blasio's Police Budget Cuts Behind Soaring Gun Violence
Violent crime has skyrocketed 200% since Democrat mayor slashed budget
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NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea has blasted New York City's Democrat Mayor Bill de Blasio over the recent surge in violent crime in NYC.
Shea called New York City's recent spike in violence "predictable" considering police budgets have been slashed and 2,500 inmates have been released from Rikers Island prison.
The police commissioner's comments came after the Big Apple saw 63 people shot, at least 11 fatally, in 44 shootings separate shootings over the holiday weekend.
One of the shootings was captured on video and shows a 29-year-old father getting shot dead as he crossed a street, hand-in-hand with his six-year-old daughter, in the Bronx on Sunday.
Speaking to NY1 on Monday morning, Commissioner Shea said he wasn't surprised at all by the weekend's surge in shootings.
"You heard me saying: 'A storm is coming,' and we're in the middle of it right now," he added.
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Shea tore into de Blasio and his administration last week after the city announced a $1billion cut to the NYPD's budget in response to weeks of protests against racism and police brutality.
"You'll see in the City Council, [a] bow to mob rule," Shea said last Wednesday.
"And let's mark the date on the calendar and how long it's going to be before we're having a conversation about New York is crying out for more police.
"And I think that day has come."
After the bloody weekend, Shea on Monday argued that there is plenty of blame to go around - including with the latest policing reforms.
He ridiculed a new local law that criminalizes the use of chokeholds, saying: "Police officers should not have to worry more about getting arrested than the person with the gun that they're rolling around on the street with."
Shea also railed against how the inmate population at Rikers Island has been reduced by half thanks to bail reform and efforts to limit the spread of coronavirus inside the notorious prison.
"Where is the other half right now?" Shea asked.
"We've transplanted general population to the streets of New York City and it's extremely frustrating.
"And don't think this is happening by happenstance. This is organized."
However, Shea said it's not too late to address city chaos.
"We can fix this," he said. "We don't need a lot of new things.
"What we need is support — and that's in short supply. We need tools.
"We need the laws that make sense. And then we need resources.
"Those three things and we can turn this around quickly."
As shootings soar over July 4th weekend, NYPD Commissioner Shea points to the low # of prisoners at Rikers, says they're released back into public. "People focus on the wrong thing. You have the guns - of course you can’t shoot anyone without a gun - but it’s the people." pic.twitter.com/SLDiKnamqP
— Spectrum News NY1 (@NY1) July 6, 2020
Shootings in New York City have skyrocketed more than 200% in recent weeks as a violent crime wave grips the nation's largest city.
According to the New York Post, citing police statistics, there were three times as many shootings in the Big Apple during the last two weeks of June as during the same time period in 2019.
There were 116 shooting incidents between June 15 and July 2 of this year, compared to just 38 during the same two-week period last year.
In total, 157 New Yorkers were injured from gunfire, compared to just 57 last year during the same period.
According to the NYPD, last month was the deadliest and most violent June in 24 years, recording a total of 205 shooting incidents over the entire month.
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Following a bloody 4th of July weekend, Mayor de Blasio attempted to blame the recent surge of violent crime in the city on the coronavirus.
The mayor defended the recent policing reforms, which saw $1 billion in cuts to the NYPD with his support.
De Blasio vowed to keep New York City "the safest big city in America.”
But the city saw another weekend of violence that left at least eight people dead and more than 44 people shot and injured.
"I want to talk about what happened this weekend," de Blasio began.
"Many were out there celebrating, but we saw too much violence, and we have a lot of work to do to address it,” de Blasio said.
"This is directly related to coronavirus,” de Blasio claimed.
However, Hazel Thomas — the mother of Jomo Glasgow, who was gunned down on June 17 — attributed the sharp increase of violence to the NYPD disbanding its "anti-crime" unit of plainclothes officers.
"They shouldn't have disbanded it," Thomas told the Post.
"Whatever the problem they have, address it. But don't disband the unit.
"Many lives would have been saved. Not just my son."
