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Wednesday, July 4, 2012

NYC - 60 People Got Shot in 1-Week Period after Fewer Stop-and-Frisks


It’s heating up out there.

The number of people shot in the city last week jumped nearly 50 percent compared with the same period last year — and a deadly mix of hotter temperatures and fewer stop-and-frisks is to blame, cops said yesterday.

Sixty people were shot in the five boroughs last week — a 46 percent increase over last year’s 41 victims, police said.

And that could just be the beginning, warned one law-enforcement source.

“With less cops, massive retirement looming and violence on the rise in the city, it’s gonna be a long, hot summer,” the source said.

Overall, the total number of shootings this year has hit 802 — a 7.9 percent increase over 743 for the same period last year.

Cops blamed the bloodbath on rising temperatures and increased scrutiny on the controversial stop-and-frisk procedure that proponents say takes dangerous criminals off the street.

“That is a major contributing factor,” one law-enforcement source said of the decrease in stop-and-frisks. “[Street cops] are collectively afraid. It’s because of the political consequences and [Civilian Complaint Review Board] complaints.”

NYPD officials have been pressing rank-and-file cops to tone down on the practice.

“They want quality, not quantity,” one source said.

Critics of the tactic claim it unfairly targets minorities.

Last week’s heat wave also was blamed for the crime uptick.

“Warm weather means shorter tempers, and the people know that police are doing less stop-and-frisks, so more people carry guns,” said another police source.

In one terrifying day, at least 14 people were shot — including one fatally — in 10 incidents from 11:29 p.m. Thursday until early the next night.

Despite the jump in shootings, murders are still down in the city. Eight people have been killed this year so far compared with 13 for the same time last year. Still, the crime rate is up 4 percent.

An NYPD spokeswoman said of the increase in shootings: “It’s always difficult to say why one week may spike and another doesn’t because of separate incidents in different boroughs. We see crime peaks and valleys throughout the year tend to flatten over time.”

One police source noted narcotics arrests were down 24 percent last week from the past year, suggesting more violent thugs were free to roam the city.

“Fewer arrests equals more criminals on the street,” the source said.

The shootings were spread out across most of city’s eight patrol boroughs, but precincts in Brooklyn saw sizeable spikes.

Source: NY Post

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