The New York Police Department's top uniformed officer once again decried a sharp rise in violence in the city, as numbers showed August was a continuation of the increase in bloodshed throughout the five boroughs that started toward the beginning of summer.
There were 242 shootings in August alone, an increase of 166 percent from August 2019, the department said.
"This summer, we've experienced a tidal wave of violence," Chief of Department Terence Monahan said. "There's a hell of a lot of guns out on the street right now."
To combat those shootings, the NYPD unveiled new gun suppression units in precincts across the city. Unlike the disbanded anti-crime units, these officers will be in uniform in unmarked cars as they try to get some of the guns off the street.
But it's not just shootings that seem to have become more common. Case in point, a video showed a man getting put in a headlock and dragged down the street while two other men robbed him in Washington Heights. That was one of nine violent robberies in that neighborhood in just the past 12 days.
The continued violent uptick reared its head again on Thursday. Police said a 25-year-old man was shot in the stomach in Queens Thursday evening.
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Witnesses said the shooting, which took place at the corner of Borden Avenue and 2nd Street in Long Island City, started as a fight over a parking spot, and the shooter took off immediately afterward. Police are now looking for the driver of a grey BMW.
That shooting comes of the heels of another brazen crime caught on surveillance video Wednesday night in Washington Heights. Two men on a motorbike were seen on security camera footage roll up on the sidewalk at 175th and Saint Nicholas Avenue, with one of them shooting the victim in the face at point blank range. The victim died, and no arrests have yet been made.
The department said there will be more cops spread out across the city during Labor Day weekend, targeting known trouble spots.
