Series Of Gun Violence Across New York City Leaves At Least 8 Injured In Single Day
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A series of gun violence across New York City left eight people injured Tuesday.
In one incident in the Bronx, shots were fired by police.
As CBS2's Ali Bauman reports, police here fired off several rounds after a driver tried to escape a traffic stop and ended up dragging one of the officers. Shards of glass cut up that cop's hand, but he is otherwise OK.
The night didn't stop there though. Police raced from that scene to another shooting, a bloody end to a particularly violent day.
Police scoured the intersection of 167th Street and Walton Avenue, where around 6:30 p.m. police officers tried to stop a gray car, but the driver tried to flee and dragged an officer. Police then opened fire, but the suspect got away.
Martin Dzikpor works in the area.
"I was here working and one of my coworkers was outside and he said, 'Come, there's a shootout going on.' So we quickly went outside and we saw the police car driving around," he said.
Residents say they heard about six gunshots.
"I'm concerned 'cause this is where I work, so it's scary," Dzikpor said.
It's unclear why officers were trying to stop the gray car in the first place. Police are still searching for that driver.
Officers were soon called from that scene to another shooting just blocks away where three men were shot around 8:30 p.m. on Mount Eden Avenue. Two of them are fighting for their lives.
But Tuesday's violence began much earlier.
Around 8 a.m. in Queens, a 30-year-old woman was shot in the leg by a stray bullet while she was sleeping in her friend's apartment in Far Rockaway.
A few hours later on the Lower East Side, a 75-year-old woman was grazed by a bullet while walking on Clinton Street. Investigators are looking for the four suspects who took off in a car.
Back in Queens around 4 p.m., another woman was shot in Far Rockaway. She was struck in the head and taken to a local hospital in serious condition.
Three hours later, around 7 p.m., a man in Washington Heights was hospitalized after being shot twice in the leg.
Before this week even started, shootings were up 28% citywide compared to this time last year and up 52% compared to two years ago.
In the midst of all this, the NYPD is shuffling to redeploy more than 600 existing officers into the subways.
"We are, you know, scratching, if you will, across the city to make sure we are getting as many people as we can out to keep New Yorkers safe, but I think we're in good shape," NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said.
Police are still investigating the motive for that triple shooting over in Mount Eden.