New York: Gun violence as high as it was last in 1996

Berlin.
New York was just on the mend. The glittering metropolis on the Hudson River had looked into the Corona abyss: more than 18,000 people died of the epidemic. But in the end there have been more and more days when none New corona infections were recorded. Hope was born. The city that survived the September 11th terrorist attacks found new breath.

But now New York is receiving a wave of violence shocked. There were 205 shootings in June, the highest number since 1996. Over the weekend of the national holiday on July 4th alone, there were 64 shootings with ten dead.

Violence in New York: One of the Most Violent Weekends

“This is a rough summer,” said Terence Monahan, the senior cop in the New York Police Department (NYPD). The first weekend in July was “one of the most violent in recent history,” he added. “It shows how many people are walking around with guns.”

In fact, New York had its worst years behind it and had become the safest US city. But now the numbers point in a different direction. While robberies and thefts continue to decline in the long term, the number of shootings is rising sharply again.

“Bill, do something!” Was the headline of the tabloid “New York Post” with a view of Mayor Bill de Blasio. It was a nod to a similar cover from September 1990 when David Dinkins was mayor (“David, do something!”) And Bill de Blasio was his advisor.

One in five people in New York currently has no job

There are several causes of the high level of violence. Unemployment rose dramatically during the pandemic. One in five people in New York currently has no job. This has not happened since the global economic crisis in the early 1930s. The frustration about it turns into aggression or disregard of norms. This also includes the many illegal fireworks that have kept many residents awake for nights since June.

Coronavirus in den USA:

In addition, the judicial system is overloaded across the board. The courts are understaffed. 2,500 inmates of New York City Prison Rikers Island were released early because the virus was circulating there. Many underground prisoners remained at large, including almost half of all those charged with gun possession.

7,000 of the 38,000 police officers in New York warn temporarily on sick leave

The corona crisis gnawed at the personnel situation of the police. In New York City at times more than 7,000 of the 38,000 officials were on sick leave, and dozen have died of Covid-19. And there is still the motivation problem: Police officers keep claiming that they are so distracted by the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests that they can no longer bother with criminals.

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But New York is not an isolated case. Chicago, Washington, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Houston or Miami: Gun violence is exploding everywhere, and children are dying everywhere. “This must not become normal,” complained David Brown, the Chicago police chief.

In Portland, Trump deployed federal police past the governor

US President Donald Trump made sinister threats. “New York City is out of control,” he said, and implied “exciting measures” against the violence in his ex-homeland and other “war zones”: if necessary, he would “march in” and simply “take over” these “radical left cities”.