As calls from the Left intensify to abolish the police, and New York City takes action to remove officers and dismantle vital anti-crime units, the city that never sleeps surged in gun violence by a stunning 358% since this time last year.
“It has been nearly a quarter century since New York City experienced as much gun violence in the month of June as it has seen this year,” The New York Times reported Tuesday.
NYC “logged 125 shootings in the first three weeks of the month, more than double the number recorded over the same period last year, police data show,” the report noted. “Gunmen opened fire during house parties, barbecues and dice games, and carried out coldly calculated street executions.”
Chief of Crime Control Strategies Michael LiPetri said you would “have to go back to 1996 to have a worse start of June.”
Over this past weekend, 38 people were shot in just 72 hours, and that total only grew larger by Monday.
Commissioner Dermot F. Shea disbanded anti-crime units in the city last week, comprised of plainclothes officers, which were vital for proactive policing concerning illegal firearms on the streets.
Additionally, as noted by Forbes, roughly 600 plainclothes officers were reassigned “to new roles including neighborhood policing and detective bureaus” in conjunction with the disbanding of the proactive police units.
Chief LiPetri cited virus-related court proceedings restrictions for contributing to the spike. “Although police arrested more people for gun possession this year, he said many were released because their cases could not be presented to a grand jury within six days, the statutory limit for holding people in custody without an indictment,” he explained, according to the Times.
About 40% of those arrested on gun possession charges had been released without bail, thanks to Democrat-led “reforms.”
NYC is not alone in the recent crime spike, Democrat-run cities like Chicago and Minneapolis have also been plagued with sky-high shooting rates.
Still, as noted by The Daily Wire, the Minneapolis City Council voted earlier this month to unanimously pass a resolution that would replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a so-called “community-led public safety system.”
The resolution cited the death of George Floyd, a black man who died last month following a disturbing arrest captured on viral video.
“The murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, by Minneapolis police officers is a tragedy that shows that no amount of reforms will prevent lethal violence and abuse by some members of the Police Department against members of our community, especially Black people and people of color,” wrote five of the council members.
The decision to gut policing in the city was strongly pushed back on by Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo, who vowed not to abandon citizens.
Related: Minneapolis Police Chief Blasts Calls To Defund Department, Says He Won’t Abandon Residents
H/t The Daily Caller
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