Mayor Invoice de Blasio on Thursday downplayed the surge in shootings plaguing the town as he defended his resolution to not rent extra cops with $6 billion in federal COVID-19 aid — despite the fact that President Biden explicitly approved such a transfer.
De Blasio additionally falsely claimed that Biden’s remarks weren’t aimed on the Large Apple, despite the fact that gun violence throughout the town has spiked greater than 40 p.c this yr — together with the broad daylight taking pictures of a vacationer in Occasions Sq. and two youngsters caught on digicam ducking bullets in The Bronx.
“He specified that to sure cities that have been coping with challenges which are larger than ours,” de Blasio mentioned of the president in response to a query from The Put up throughout his day by day Metropolis Corridor press briefing.
However a White Home supply mentioned de Blasio was “incorrect.”
“Cities like New York which are experiencing a spike in gun violence on account of the pandemic are eligible to make use of [the] cash to rent extra cops above a pre-pandemic baseline degree to assist tackle that,” the supply mentioned.
The metropolis’s $98.7 billion metropolis finances for fiscal 2022, adopted Wednesday, added simply $200 million to the NYPD’s finances, which final yr was slashed by $1 billion amid calls for by protesters to “defund the police.”
Final week, Biden mentioned the White Home was “offering extra steering” to native governments on how they might spend the $350 billion doled out by his “American Rescue Plan,” together with “to assist cut back crime and tackle the basis causes.”
“For instance, cities experiencing a rise in gun violence are ready to make use of American Rescue Plan {dollars} to rent cops wanted for group policing and to pay their extra time,” the president mentioned.
Following de Blasio’s information convention, The Put up requested Metropolis Corridor which “sure cities” the mayor was referring to, and famous that NYPD statistics present that shootings this yr have elevated 42.7 p.c by June 27 in comparison with the identical interval final yr.
Since 2019, shootings have extra than doubled, by 105.1 p.c, the official CompStat figures present.
In Los Angeles and Chicago, shootings are up 47.4 and 12 p.c since final yr, respectively, and 41.6 and 59 p.c since 2019, in response to statistics posted on-line by their police departments.
De Blasio spokesman Invoice Neidhardt known as it “wildly deceptive to make use of proportion improve as the one comparability level” and supplied a chart ready by Metropolis Corridor final month that compares the variety of shootings in eight main cities — however on a per-capita foundation.
The chart reveals New York with the fewest variety of shootings per 100,000 residents, and a charge of 17.3 p.c this yr, up from 10.5 final yr.
“We began decrease, are decrease,” Neidhardt mentioned.
“Share improve highlights how low of a beginning place we have been in because of Mayor de Blasio.”
Though the chart doesn’t embrace annual charges of improve, its figures present that shootings in New York are up 64.8 p.c — greater than anyplace else besides blood-drenched Baltimore, the place gun violence is up 84.2 p.c.
Los Angeles, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago and Newark, N.J., all have smaller will increase than New York, whereas Boston has really seen shootings drop 18.8 p.c, in response to Metropolis Corridor’s statistics.
