Guns n' students

CBS News 

 There was a shocking discovery after metal detectors were sent to a Queens high school one day after a brazen daylight shooting that left three teenagers injured.

Now, Mayor Eric Adams is taking action, ordering his precinct commanders and top NYPD brass to attend an unusual weekend meeting, CBS2's Marcia Kramer reported Thursday.

One top NYPD official described the meeting at police headquarters this Saturday as a "beat down." The mayor's spokesman told Kramer only that his boss regards himself as a general who intends to lead from the front.

But for many of us, the number of weapons found at Francis Lewis High School on Thursday was astounding.

"The weapons count went to over 20 and they're still counting. I know they have a stun gun and pepper spray from one student, have a lot of knives," Teamsters Local 237 President Gregory Floyd said.

Students at Francis Lewis High in Fresh Meadows had to wait on long lines and take directions from school safety agents on Thursday, following the stunning daylight shooting that left three students wounded, including a 14-year-old Asian girl who was shot in the neck, has a bullet lodged in her spine, and still hasn't regained consciousness.

Police sources said a group of students, many from Francis Lewis High, were walking home on 188th Street. The occupant of a silver sedan began shouting at the kids, police say, and then a man got out of the car and opened fire.

"It's not happening in the middle of the night. It's happening in the afternoon, on a busy street, in a busy area where kids congregate after school," Fresh Meadows parent George Douveas said.

The mayor was outraged both about the shooting and the cache of weapons found at the school.

"There should be no doubt that keeping New York City safe is my top priority," he told CBS2, adding, "It is unacceptable for prohibited items to be taken to school."

Queens Chronicle

Three teens were shot walking on 188th Street near 64th Avenue at approximately 4:10 p.m. Wednesday afternoon.

The three victims — a 14-year-old girl and two 18-year-old boys — were walking in a group of 10 to 12 other teenagers, Deputy Inspector Kevin Chan of the 107th Precinct estimated, when the shooter, who had been double parked on the block, approached the group. An argument ensued, and shots were fired at the teens. The 14-year-old was shot in the neck, one of the 18-year-olds in the right hip and the other in the right calf, Chan said.

According to the NYPD press office, the girl is stable but critical and the two boys are stable. Chan, the precinct’s commander, said all are expected to survive.

Wednesday’s incident comes amid a recent uptick in crime in northeastern Queens — generally among the safer parts of the borough. In late March, northeast Queens saw two shooting incidents within the span of a week: one outside a party at a foreclosed house in Bayside, which squatters had been renting out on Airbnb, the other near Cardozo High School, and just days later. The latter involved at least three Cardozo students. On April 16, a woman was robbed and assaulted in the parking lot of the Oakland Gardens Key Food. The shooting Wednesday is the second the 107th Precinct has had this year; it had five all of last year. 

At this time, little is known about the perpetrator. Chan said that his age is not known and that he fled the scene in a gray BMW; the motive is unknown. It is also unclear whether the teens who were shot are the same ones who argued with the shooter, nor  if the group were all walking together, or if they just happened to be in the same place at the same time.

“It’s still early,” Chan said. “We’re trying to do our interviews, trying to, obviously, interview everyone that was there.”

Both Chan and Assemblymember Nily Rozic (D-Fresh Meadows), however, were able to confirm that two of the victims — the 14-year-old and one of the 18-year-olds — attend Francis Lewis High School, a 12-minute walk from the scene.

Thursday afternoon, two school safety vehicles were parked outside the main entrance on Utopia Parkway, and students could be seen lined up outside the school; Rozic said that was because their bags were being searched as they entered the building.

Rozic, Councilmember Linda Lee (D-Oakland Gardens) and Councilman Jim Gennaro (D-Hillcrest) issued a joint statement on the incident late Wednesday evening. In addition to wishing the victims a speedy recovery and thanking the first responders on the scene, the group emphasized the need to take on gun violence. 

“Given recent events including shootings and assaults in neighboring communities, we understand the growing concerns about public safety in Northeast Queens and are calling for a renewed commitment from all levels of government to tackle the rising gun violence across New York City,” the statement reads.

Man shoots cop to death and critically wounds another cop in his mother's apartment during a domestic disturbance call

  

 

NY Times

 

A New York City police officer was killed in a shooting in Harlem on Friday and a second officer was in critical condition, officials said. They were the third and fourth officers to be shot in the line of duty this week, according to the Police Department.

The police initially reported that both officers had been killed, but later said one had not been officially pronounced dead by the hospital.

The police did not immediately provide information about what had precipitated the shooting of the officers, who were taken to Harlem Hospital. One suspect was also shot, officials said. Information on the person’s condition was not immediately available.

The shooting happened around 6 p.m. near the intersection of Lenox Avenue and West 135th Street. Within an hour, dozens of officers were in the area, which was sealed off by yellow caution tape and a half-dozen patrol cars.

Mayor Eric Adams — who was in the Bronx earlier attending a vigil for an 11-month-old girl who was hit in the face by a stray bullet on Wednesday night — was headed to the hospital, a spokesman said.

The shooting of the officers was the latest in a series of crimes early in Mr. Adams’s term that is testing his vow to heighten public safety after increases in certain crimes amid the pandemic. Shootings especially have surged in some parts of the city.

The recent spate of violence has included the fatal shoving of a 40-year-old woman into the path of a subway train at Times Square station, the killing of a 19-year-old woman who was shot by a man robbing an East Harlem Burger King and the shooting of the baby in the Bronx.

On Tuesday, an officer was shot in the leg as he scuffled with a teenage suspect during a confrontation in the Bronx. And early Thursday, a detective was shot in the leg when a man fired through a door during a search for drugs at a Staten Island home, officials said. Neither of their injuries was life-threatening.

The shootings of the officers this week follow one on New Year’s Day in which an off-duty officer was shot in the head while sleeping in a car between shifts outside an East Harlem station house. He was treated at a hospital and released.

The last New York City officer to be fatally shot was Brian Mulkeen, who was killed by so-called friendly fire in September 2019 while he struggled with an armed man in the Bronx.

In October 2015, Officer Randolph Holder was fatally shot by a suspect he was chasing in East Harlem. The previous December, two officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, were killed while sitting in their patrol car in Brooklyn. The gunman shot them at point-blank range after traveling to New York from Baltimore intent on killing officers.

The shooting death of a police officer in Harlem on Friday adds mounting pressure on Mayor Eric Adams to deliver quickly and effectively on the central thesis of his campaign for office: that only he, a retired police captain with 22 years on the force, has the know-how to restore a sense of public safety to New York City’s streets.

The Friday shooting caps the mayor’s third week in office, and his tenure has already coincided with a spate of violence that has riveted public attention.

On Wednesday, an 11-month-old baby was shot in the face in the Bronx. On Thursday, a police officer was shot in Staten Island while serving a warrant. On Saturday morning, an Asian-American woman was shoved in front of a moving train in Times Square, in the heart of New York City’s once thriving tourist district.

Then, on Friday afternoon, two police officers responding to a domestic dispute were shot in Harlem, one fatally and one left in critical condition.

“Today, I went to the hospital to visit the cop that was shot in Staten Island,” said Councilwoman Kamillah Hanks, who chairs the committee on public safety. “I hugged his mom and said how lucky you are. And hours later, you hear this news.”

The act of violence is eerily reminiscent of an episode during his predecessor Bill de Blasio’s first year in office, when a gunman assassinated two police officers while they were sitting in their police car in Brooklyn.

Mr. de Blasio ran on a platform of police reform. Mr. Adams, who was both a former police officer and police reformer, ran on the idea that he could rein in violence and reform the police at the same time.

He has yet to lay out a comprehensive plan for how he intends to do that.

 

 

 

 NY Post

The man who allegedly ambushed and shot two NYPD officers —  one fatally — in Harlem Friday is a convicted felon who was on probation at the time, authorities said.

Lashawn McNeil, 47, was shot in the head and arm by a third officer as he tried to flee, and was hospitalized in critical condition Friday night, NYPD Chief of detectives James Essig said at a press conference.

The alleged gunman was on probation for a 2003 felony narcotics conviction in New York City, Essig said.

Authorities said McNeil was sitting in the back bedroom of an apartment at at 119 West 135th Street when he swung the door open and allegedly fired on two cops, Rookie Officer Jason Rivera, 22, was killed and and 27-year-old Officer Wilbert Mora, who joined the force in 2018, was gravely wounded.

The officers, and a third cop, had been responding to a domestic disturbance call from a woman who said she needed help with her son at around 6:15 p.m.. The woman “mentioned no injuries and no weapons,” said Essig.

When they got to the apartment, the three cops were met by that woman and another son. They were informed that the son she was having issues with was in the back bedroom, down a “very tight” hallway about 30 feet long, Essig said.

 Police recovered an illegal Glock 45 at the scene, equipped with a “high capacity magazine” that holds an additional 40 rounds, Essig said. The weapon was stolen from Baltimore in 2017. Police are working with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to further trace the gun.

(I updated the headline according to recent reports- JQ LLC)

 

The Woodhaven Horror

 

 

 

 NY Post

 

Three people were shot at an abandoned house in Queens on Tuesday night, cops said.

The victims were struck by gunfire inside 87-42 77th Street in the Woodhaven section of the borough, according to police sources.

 

 Looks like there's some Airbnb action going on here in this place too.

 

High noon

 

NY Post 

Brazen gunslingers are shooting the daylights out of the Big Apple.

After a shocking execution in Park Slope and last Saturday afternoon’s shooting spree in Times Square, The Post requested crime data to see if the impression that criminals have become bolder in broad daylight is true.

Sadly, it appears so.

As of April 25, the NYPD recorded 374 shootings this year — and 119, or 32 percent, occurred between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. During the same period last year there were 213 shootings — with 63, or 30 percent, happening in daylight.

The 2-percent uptick in the percentage of daylight-to-overall shootings was not as worrisome to the cops’ union as the surging frequency of daytime gunplay: the increase from 63 shootings last year to 119 this year represents an 89-percent explosion.

“The increase in brazen, broad-daylight shootings just confirms what we already knew: violent criminals have no fear anymore,” Police Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch told The Post.

“They know that the police are underfunded, understaffed and hobbled by pro-criminal politicians and a broken justice system,” he added. “They know that if we arrest them in the morning, they’ll be back out in time for dinner. If New Yorkers don’t want a city where criminals control both the night and the day, they need to push elected officials to act

 

Two women and a little girl got shot in Times Square in broad daylight

 

Impunity City

Seems like bad old days again in the new Times Square…

Why wait for Broadway to re-open and spend a grand on Hamilton when you can see a duel between two shitty gunmen on the street?

 NY Daily News

Three people — two women and a four-year-old girl — where hit by stray bullets when a gunman took aim at another man in Times Square on Saturday afternoon, police said.

Police were called to the area near W. 44th St. and Seventh Ave. around 4:55 p.m.

The victims were rushed to local hospitals. Two victims taken to Bellevue Hospital, including the little girl, did not suffer life-threatening wounds, said police.

None of the three victims were known to each other, law enforcement sources said. One of the injured woman is 23 years old, and the other is 42 years old.

The mayhem began when two men on a street corner started arguing, and one of them pulled a gun, said police sources.

Shootings and guns on the streets rise again

 

QNS

 The NYPD’s crime statistics for October revealed a predicted increase in shooting incidents and gun crimes as compared to 2019, while homicide rates showed a slight decrease.

Citywide shooting incidents saw a 121 percent increase, with 137 citywide shootings this year compared to last year’s 62. On a year-to-date analysis these figures remark a 93.9 percent spike of 1,299 through Oct. 31, 2020, compared to 2019’s 670. Gun arrests for the month of October leapt by 102 percent from 248 in 2019 to 502 in 2020, with an increase in every borough and with the year-to-date tally up 15 percent.

Murders for the month of October fell from 36 in 2019 to 35 in 2020, while on a year-to-date analysis homicides are up 37 percent for the first 10 months of 2020 compared to 2019.

Last night one fatal shooting occurred in a public housing complex in Upper Manhattan, while two other shooting incidents related to automobile theft both occurred in the Bronx.

The NYPD made mention of the unique circumstance of the coronavirus pandemic as having a part to play in the city’s increases in shootings and gun crime, while commentators continue to ascribe part of the blame for the city’s increase in gun bloodshed to peaks in gang-related activity and bail reform.

 Impunity City

In Ozone Park, a homeless man shot a bodega store clerk to death after the worker kicked him out of the store for being a nuisance and he returned with a gun from the car he was living in that was parked across the street. As the man was about to shoot the other clerk, an off-duty cop tackled him to the floor.

 

New York's bail reform law has led to a rise in Omerta

 

NY Post

With shootings in the city up 87 percent this year and murder mushrooming by 34 percent, the NYPD needs cooperating witnesses more than ever.

But they are coming up against a wall of stony silence. And cops and prosecutors point to myriad reasons.

“The community helps solve lots of different types of crimes,” Giacalone said. “When the public doesn’t trust the police, the information stops flowing. And that information is vital.”

Police worry that COVID-19 changes like ubiquitous face masks will make it even more difficult to identify shooters.

Then there is the rising tidal wave of gang violence, where scores are settled on the streets and not a court of law. Gangbangers rarely talk.

“It’s a challenging time,” said NYPD spokesman Al Baker. “There’s an anti-snitch culture that’s taken root amid a level of violence that makes people reluctant to cooperate with our investigators. But we work every day with our partners in the city’s district attorneys’ offices to combat this culture and to solve crimes and help ensure public safety.”

Experts say recently enacted laws that endanger witnesses aren’t helping matters.

“The New York State Bail Reform Act has royally screwed up policing,” Sgt. Joseph Imperatrice, founder of Blue Lives Matter NYC, told The Post, saying the new discovery rules and judges letting criminals go have reversed “decades of progress.”

“Witnesses and confidential informants have little to no protection in regards to the new discovery rules,” he explained. (Reliable confidential informants, also known as CIs, are often paid).

“Old-school policing, where good officers would meet with people on the street to gain information, has dwindled,” he added. “Many witnesses know that their personal information will be available and possibly get out to the defense team.”

Under the new rules, prosecutors must give defense counsel the name and contact information of anyone with information relevant to a case within 15 days of arraignment — ­regardless of whether the person will testify at trial.

One seasoned Brooklyn detective said the new discovery rules have a lot to do with cops being stonewalled. “Witnesses ask if the shooter will get their name and they are told, ‘Probably yes,’ ” he said.

He said he used to have cooperating witnesses in about 75 percent of cases, but “now I would say we get witnesses in less than half of the cases.”

  Impunity City

 This bail reform law was designed to bring down inmate population in prisons, most notably Rikers Island, to make way for four tower prisons in four boroughs that no one wants. Sorry, no sane person wants. The list of crimes that are exempt from judge's decision to set bail are mostly based on the most violent and devastating acts you can commit on your fellow citizens and damage them for life mentally and financially. And a majority of them are burglaries and robberies, which are usually committed with the use of a gun. 

 

1,014

NY Post

The city surpassed 1,000 shootings for the year on Sunday, according to NYPD data, which also shows an average of nearly 10 people fell victim to gun violence each day over the last four weeks.

With four more months left in 2020, New York City logged 1,004 1014 shootings as of Aug. 30, according to NYPD data released Monday. Last year, there had been just 537 by that time.

It is the first time the city has eclipsed the benchmark in gun violence since 2015, when 1,138 shootings were recorded for the entire year.

“Mr. Mayor, it is time to stop calling New York the safest big city,” a Brooklyn cop quipped to The Post.

1,000

NY Post

The Big Apple is set to hit more grim milestones, with the number of shootings and gun victims so far this year set to match figures for same period the past two years — combined.

There have been 821 shootings and 1,000 gun victims as of Saturday.

Last year for same time frame, there were 466 shootings and 551 victims, while in 2018, there were 449 incidents and 548 victims.

That means combined, there were 905 shooting incidents and 1,099 victims for time period in 2018 and 2019 — close to the totals for this year alone, according to statistics released by the NYPD on Sunday.

deBlasio and the NYPD lie about court's role in the rise in shootings, and continue to lie about it.

NY Post

They’re starting to run out of excuses.

The mayor and police have repeatedly blamed a coronavirus-related court shutdown for the explosion of gun violence rocking the city — but firearms cases are making their way through the criminal justice system at the same rate as last year, a Post investigation shows.

The revelations come after The Post showed that the NYPD’s own data did not support those claims that bail reform and early prison releases over coronavirus were driving the spike.

“It’s a combination of things — bail reform, COVID releases from prison, court shutdown, which has Rikers [Island] at half of where they were,” Chief of Department Terence Monahan said in a July 6 press briefing, seeking to explain the 70-percent rise in shootings this year. Commissioner Dermot Shea and Mayor de Blasio have also blamed court closure for the uptick, with Shea calling the tie “indisputable” on Monday.

But the data tells another story.

In December 2019, as the city officials touted a record-breaking low in shootings, there were 2,285 open gun cases in Gotham with 13 percent of suspects awaiting trial, according to an analysis by The Post.

In July 2020, with shootings skyrocketing to 1990s-like levels, the courts had 2,181 open firearms cases and 10 percent in lockup — or 104 fewer pending gun cases, the data shows.

Additionally, of the 1,957 people facing gun charges out on the streets in July — which is 27 fewer than in December — only 2 percent, or 39 people, were busted again for a firearm, according to the data obtained by The Post.

There were also more gun and murder arraignments from April to June compared to October through December last year, with 819 over the three-month period this year compared to 642 last year, court data shows.

NY Post

The buck continues to stop everywhere but on Mayor Bill de Blasio’s desk.

Hizzoner once again attacked the messenger Thursday rather than address a new Post article that found firearms cases are going through the criminal justice system at the same rate as last year — refuting his claims that a coronavirus-related court shutdown is most responsible for this summer’s surge in shootings

“I have not seen The Post article and I don’t always get accuracy from that publication,” de Blasio sniffed during a virtual City Hall press briefing when asked about the damning piece by a Wall Street Journal reporter.

In December 2019, there were 2,285 open gun cases in Gotham with 13 percent of suspects awaiting trial, according to the Post analysis based on NYPD and court data. In July 2020, the courts had 2,181 open firearms cases and 10 percent in lockup — or 104 fewer pending gun cases, the data shows.

There were also more gun and murder arraignments from April to June compared to October through December last year, with 819 over the three-month period this year compared to 642 last year, court data shows.

De Blasio tried to discredit those numbers — before realizing they came from his own police department.

“Anyone can try and manipulate a statistic,” he said.

When the Journal reporter pointed out the data were NYPD statistics, de Blasio refused to back down.

“It’s a publication that historically has provided inaccurate information. It may be accurate statistics in this case, but I’m just not going to be gentle about the point that when there is a history of inaccuracy and an axe to grind it’s worth saying,” de Blasio fumed at The Post, rather than addressing the issue at hand.

“There is no one claiming the court system is functioning as normal. There’s just no one doing it,” de Blasio flailed.

Gentrification is no panacea for rising crime wave

New York Gentrification Watch

They’re murders that never, ever should’ve happened in “New” New York–but did and continue to happen at an alarming rate in 2020. I’m not just talking about the senseless drive-bys now revisiting inner city communities with a vengeance. I am also talking about an uptick in attempted murders at tourist traps and homicides in tony neighborhoods–and of the likes not seen since the days when The NY Post ran its infamous, “Headless Body in Topless Bar” headline.

These recent murders particularly make my blood boil, because they’re clearly the indirect result of an incredibly smarmy Robert Mose-ian plan designed to “clean up New York.” The plan was this: let’s get rid of all the disgusting immigrant, minority, bohemian and working class slobs and replace them with “better” people. Once the icky scum are gone, NYC will be a crime and vice-free utopia to rival that of Japan’s. Hell, it’ll be such a cakewalk keeping the peace that policing will be a matter of just kicking back, standing around in an officious manner and occasionally roughing up a few “hood” teenagers. No need to actively police the city with so many affluent white and foreign national gentrifiers walking around with their Starbucks coffee cups and Whole Foods shopping bags in tow. It’s all good!

It was a plan that seemed bulletproof (no pun intended). And now all of a sudden–after years of urban planners, developers and neoliberal politicians successfully wiping out imagined hives of scum and villainy in NYC–violent crime is skyrocketing. It’s skyrocketed to such an extent that we’ve effectively erased the past 25 years of progress. If things get any worse, NYC will be right back to where it was in the 1970s, except without the cool colorful local characters, distinctive neighborhoods and vibrant cultural scenes that still made living here a badge of honor.

The most ironic thing about this new crime wave is that the grisliest murders seem to be occurring in those very neighborhoods that have been the heaviest hit by gentrification. The worst one–and sounding like something straight out of American Psycho (or Hannibal, for you young ‘uns)–took place last week at a brand spanking new luxury development on The Lower East Side. A 21 year old tech bro casually followed his boss (Fahim Saleh) into an elevator, murdered him under security’s watch, then proceeded to dismember him with a saw before being scared off by a visitor on a welfare check.

New York City's New Bad Days are here as more shootings and illegal fireworks are reported

Impunity City

 During the last two months of the lockdown of the five boroughs and with a sizeable amount of cops stricken by COVID-19, home and commercial property burglaries and vehicle theft shot up in massive numbers in May as murders and robberies show higher incremental ticks. Crime in the subway made significant gains even though service is cut and commuting went down nearly 90%.  

Shootings went up by a lot (especially in Brooklyn) which shouldn’t be surprising considering you can be more than six feet to hit your target. Drag racing also went up in the last 3 months as the city was mostly barren from mass isolation.
 
As May began Governor Cuomo gave the order to kick the homeless off the trains including banning every other commuter from the subway at 1 am until the clock struck 5 so the trains can get thoroughly cleaned..Which had no effect with the homeless who prefer to sleep during the morning and noon hours as the lower paid contractors deftly cleaned around them. 

 And that's only a sample of NYC's Spring of chaos and disorder...

NY Post

 Bullets are whizzing around New York this month at a rate not seen in nearly a quarter-century, according to the NYPD — and police sources warned that the recent rate of gunplay may be the new normal.
Through the first three weeks of June, which came to a close Sunday, city streets echoed with 125 shooting incidents, Chief of Crime Control Strategies Michael LiPetri told The Post on Monday.
“We have to go back to June of 1996 to get a worse start for June,” said LiPetri. “That is a telling stat.”
Twenty-four years ago, Rudy Giuliani was mayor and, while the city had made strides in tamping down crime, Gotham still saw 2,938 people shot and 984 killed.
Although overall crime citywide remains down 2.5 percent for the year, shootings, already trending up this year, exploded in June.
From Monday, June 15, through Sunday, there were 53 shooting incidents across the city, the highest mark for a single week since Mayor Bill de Blasio took office.
The last time the city recorded that many shootings in a week was around July 4, 2012, according to police sources.
But to find a nonholiday week — which tends to be quieter — with that many shootings, the department had to look all the way back to 2005, according to LiPetri.
“This weekend we also saw real challenges out in our streets in terms of gun violence,” said de Blasio in a press briefing, remarking on the blood-soaked stretch that included 24 people shot citywide Saturday.
“We are not going to allow gun violence to continue to grow in this city,” vowed Hizzoner.


Gothamist

 As thundering firework displays continue to shoot through New York City's skies, they're trailed by a boom in complaints about the illegal use of pyrotechnics. From Washington Heights to Ditmas Park, weary residents say they've been pushed to the brink by screeching explosions that begin before sundown and last well into the morning.

According to city data, 849 complaints about fireworks were logged with the city's 311 hotline in the last two weeks alone. That's a nearly 4,000 percent increase from the same period in 2019, which saw just 21 recorded complaints. In the first two weeks of June during the previous five years, there were less than 50 complaints related to fireworks in total.

As with other 311 data, it's not clear that the figures reflect an actual spike in activity. In many cases, the growth of nuisance calls is a better barometer of gentrification than any specific change in behavior. But while illicit fireworks have long served as the sonic backdrop to summer nights in NYC, some residents say the intensity and frequency has been noticeably greater in 2020, with many of the late-night displays appearing strangely professional.

"There’s something louder, longer, and crazier about it that’s weird," said Phoebe Streblow, a Flatbush resident. "Just the sheer cost alone of these productions is suspect. They're about the size of fireworks at a minor league ballpark."

Shootings rise in Southeast Queens and there is only one hospital to treat the victims

THE CITY

 During the first 2020 presidential debate in June, then-candidate Mayor Bill de Blasio touted New York City’s drop in crime. But even as the number of shootings has dramatically decreased across the city over the past decade, a troubling trend has emerged: The proportion of people dying from gunshots has been rising in some pockets.

Data obtained from the New York Police Department and analyzed by The Trace/Measure of America/THE CITY shows this problem has been most severe in Queens.

We mapped the 12,000-plus shootings recorded by the NYPD between 2010 and October 2018, and our analysis found that the further away someone was from a Level I or II trauma center when they were shot, the more likely they were to die.

Nowhere fared worse than neighborhoods in southern Queens, particularly those below Hillside Avenue, where more residents live further than three miles from a trauma center than anywhere else in the city.

There used to be more trauma coverage in the borough. But in February 2009, two hospitals closed, and one of them contained a Level I trauma center.

In the following two years, the gunshot fatality rate in Queens jumped from under 16% to more than 23%. That put the borough’s gunshot fatality rate 30% higher than in the rest of the city.

Since then, every year except for 2016, the death rate from gunshots in Queens has been higher than in the city as a whole.

 “How well your trauma system works, and how good your care is across the country is a big mosaic, and where you are will determine your outcomes,” said Dr. Robert Winchell, the former chair of the trauma systems committee for the American College of Surgeons.

Today, most areas of New York City have access to multiple trauma centers while southern Queens has only one: Jamaica Hospital Medical Center. But financial documents, audits and state reports indicate the facility is ailing.

The hospital was in the red 12 of the 13 years between 2005 and 2017. It finished that year with a deficit of more than $66 million, according to IRS filings and an independent audit.

“I’m not sure how you keep the doors open with that,” said Winchell, who is also chief of New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center’s trauma division.

I'm not sure you can either when the city would rather spend $11,000,000,000 on tower jails.

NYPD detective shot to death trying to stop a holdup in Richmond Hill

NY Daily News 

A NYPD detective was shot and killed, and a sergeant was wounded in a furious gunbattle Tuesday night with an armed robber in Queens, law enforcement sources said.

The death is the first line-of-duty fatality for 2019.

According to sources, police were responding to an armed robbery at a T-Mobile cell phone store at Atlantic Ave. and 121st St. in Richmond Hill at around 6:14 p.m.

A 19-year veteran detective and a squad sergeant were struck by gunfire as at least one suspect holed up inside the store, sources said. A suspect was also shot in the confrontation.

The detective was hit in the chest; he has a wife and two children, sources said. The sergeant was struck by gunfire in the hip. It wasn’t clear if the officers were wearing bullet-proof vests.

Update:

NY Post 


The NYPD detective killed while responding to a robbery in Queens was struck by friendly fire, Police Commissioner James O’Neill said at a press conference Tuesday night.


Detective Brian Simonsen, 42, was fatally shot by a fellow officer while responding to a robbery at a T-Mobile phone store on Atlantic Avenue near 120th Street in Richmond Hill soon after 6 p.m., police said.


A sergeant who responded to the robbery with Simonsen was also shot in the leg during the incident but is expected to recover.


The suspected robber, a 27-year-old with a lengthy rap sheet, was also shot and is in serious condition, authorities said. He was using an imitation gun during the robbery, O’Neill said.

Another update:

NY Daily News

Simonsen and Gorman opened fire on the suspect, and as they retreated from the store, they were struck by bullets from cops outside, O’Neill said.

Simonsen was fatally shot in the chest and Gorman was hit in the hip.

“Make no mistake about it — friendly fire aside, it is because of the actions of the suspect that Detective Simonsen is dead,” said O’Neill, who appeared near tears.

“We lost a very good man,” Mayor Bill de Blasio

The situation by the detective and his partner was under control and the backup panicked and shot at the two cops. This is going to get national attention regarding the issue of the justification of excessive force and the leniency meted by the justice system towards officers who commit it. But mostly this falls on the shoulders of the lousy and distant "leadership" of presidential wannabe Mayor de Blasio.

And this comes a week on the day two decades ago when Amadou Diallo was shot 41 times by police who thought his wallet was a weapon.

 

 Sympathies go out to the family of Det. Simonsen, who did a stalwart job tracking down this recidivist criminal.

Well wishes go out to Sgt. Gorman and his family.

As for the stupid knucklehead who got shot. You had it coming.

Another Update:

NY Post

 
The deadly barrage, which officials said unfolded in all of a minute, was the chaotic culmination of Ransom’s interrupted robbery of a T-Mobile store Tuesday night, according to cops.

Ransom, 27, stormed into the Richmond Hill store at about 6 p.m. wearing a black mask, ordered two workers into a back room and tied them up, police sources said.

 Outside, at the corner of Atlantic Avenue and 120th Street, cops alerted by two 911 callers were massing, among them 19-year NYPD veteran Simonsen, who was working on his day off to crack a robbery pattern ahead of a Thursday CompStat meeting, sources said.

Gorman, 31, and two fellow officers were the first to push into the mobile store, which they found abandoned — until Ransom sprang from the back room, pointing the fake gun at them and pulling the trigger, authorities said.

Assuming Ransom’s firearm to be real and simply jammed, the trio took no chances and retreated to the street, where they took up tactical positions along with Simonsen and four other cops, according to police.

Still holding his gun high and dry-firing it, Ransom emerged from the store to find himself in the middle of two waves of blue, with a group of cops including Gorman to his right, and Simonsen among a squad to his left, sources said.
 
Seven officers opened fire, squeezing off a total of 42 rounds.

Gorman fired 11 times. Simonsen shot twice.

“Be advised, I’m shot,” a cop, presumably Gorman, can be heard telling a dispatcher in a police radio recording of the drama, posted to Twitter by @NYScanner. “Please set up a route going to Jamaica [Hospital].”

Though the recording is apparently partially redacted, Simonsen’s voice is never heard above the din of gunfire and frantic calls of “Shots fired!”

The mayhem was over in seconds.

 Once Ransom was down, the toll of the fusillade, all NYPD rounds, became apparent to cops.

Gorman had caught a round in the leg, while Simonsen, who hadn’t been wearing a bulletproof vest, was shot through the chest.

Gorman was treated at Jamaica Hospital, where he remained Wednesday. In the same hospital, Simonsen was pronounced dead, leaving behind a wife and a mother.

 

Murder at Jackson Heights train station in broad daylight in front of commuters

NY Daily News

A man was shot to death Sunday on a crowded Queens subway platform, in a chaotic confrontation that’s captured on a shocking cell phone video posted on social media.

Police believe the victim and other men were fighting on a Manhattan-bound No. 7 train when it pulled up to the platform at 90^th St. and Elmhurst Ave. in Jackson Heights around 12:45 p.m.

The melee spilled out onto the platform when the doors opened, and that’s when one commuter starts recording with his cell phone camera.

“I thought they were fighting for no reason, as drunken people. I just kept taking video, and all of a sudden one person pulled out a gun and started shooting,” that commuter, Bidur Bista, told the Daily News.

 The victim, believed to be in his 20s, was shot in the head and died on the scene, cops said.

Investigators believe the shooter may have wrested the gun, a .22-caliber pistol, from the victim during the struggle, then killed him with it, police sources said.

 NYPD Transit Chief Edward Delatorre said cops are still trying to sort out why the men were fighting and whether they knew each other before the melee.

 "The New York City subway system remains incredibly safe for the millions of riders who use it every day, with an average of approximately one crime for every million riders per day,” Delatorre said Sunday.

Why the necessity to bring up that statistic? This guy emptied his clip and blew his head off on the busiest transit line in Queens in front of witnesses and a guy filming it on his phone.


The Bad Days are back.

Strange College Point shooting

From NBC:

In Queens, the hunt is on for four masked men who shot and killed a driver after a fender-bender escalated in College Point. Wale Aliyu reports.

DeBlasio spokesperson thinks shootings, murders aren't too bad

14 shootings & 2 murders over the 3-day holiday weekend. Safest Memorial Day wknd in years. Officers & community leaders are winning.

— Eric Phillips (@EricFPhillips) May 30, 2017

Wow, only 14 shootings? Amazing!