At least seventeen people were shot on Monday in New York. The police are talking about a number that might be a lot for an entire weekend, but for a Monday it is called “astronomical”, local media reported.

 

Most of the victims were in Brooklyn, but according to a police officer, the number of shootings is increasing in all parts of the city. Among the victims was a one-year-old child who died instantly.

Virtually all forms of crime are much more common in the metropolis. While in the US it was argued for abolishing or radical cuts to the police, New York shooting incidents rose 130 percent from June 2019. There were also far more burglaries and car thefts than a year earlier, police said.

Police chief Dermot Shea complained early this month that “the increase in violence is increasingly endangering innocent people and tearing apart the fabric of society.” Shea said budget cuts had hit police work.

In late June, Mayor Bill de Blasio, in consultation with the New York Police Department (NYPD), took a billion dollars from the police to spend the money “on youth and community work.” He did this while outside protesters against the police waited tensely for his decision.

Shea said the training of more than 1,150 candidate police officers had been cancelled due to the cutbacks. The NYPD, meanwhile, is also experiencing an exodus of personnel and a huge number of early retirement applications. In the first week of July, 179 agents announced their intention to stop working earlier compared to 35 in the same period in 2019.