Far Rockaway Taking Step Backwards, Now Grappling With How To Get Guns Off The Streets
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- After years of progress to stop the violence, a Queens community is again seeing one of the highest number of shootings in the city.
Many of the victims are young men in their 20s and 30s, and earlier this week a 15-year-old was killed.
So what are officials doing now? CBS2's Lisa Rozner asked those questions in Far Rockaway on Thursday.
On June 24, three people were shot at 9 p.m.
On Saturday, four men, ages 17 to 39, were shot in three different shootings.
MORE: Man, Teen Killed In Far Rockaway Shooting As Neighborhood Faces Increasing Gun Violence
"And now, this year, every single day somebody got shot," one person said at a rally Thursday.
"To see this happen so rapidly is like a shock to me," added Keneisha Buckley of the Rockaway Youth Task Force.
WEB EXTRA: Tracking Shootings In New York City
The 101st Precinct in Far Rockaway has seen a 233% increase in shootings from last year. In the neighboring 100th Precinct, which includes Rockaway Beach, there has been a 700% increase in shootings.
So Rozner asked Councilman Donovan Richards, who has represented the area since 2013 and chairs the Public Safety Committee, what can be done to get the guns.
"The bigger issue we should be talking about is how these illegal weapons are finding their way into our communities," Richards said.
"Now that you don't have the Anti-Crime Unit, which was big on getting guns off the streets, what's the strategy?" Rozner asked.
"The answer lies in the community," Richards said.
The NYPD would not make anyone available on camera for this story, but one resident told Rozner that in her conversations with police they believe a lot of this is attributed to gang violence.
Reps for nonprofits rallying to end gun violence blame the lack of jobs, programs, and safe spaces like libraries -- now shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic. Rock Safe Streets, a Cure Violence program that builds relationships in high-risk areas, covers a 10-block radius, but not the rest of the peninsula.
"These children can excel and become anything they want to be, but the resources need to be here," said Maurice Williams, head of the group A Father's Love 54.
Nonprofits are organizing an event on July 25 with inspiring speakers, but they say they need more government funding to reach the entire area.
And until that changes, it's not clear how the rate of shootings will, either.
One bright spot is that in the 101st Precinct, gun arrests are up 21% for the year, bucking the downward trend citywide. It reported 35 gun arrests compared to 29 last year.
Meanwhile, the neighboring 100th Precinct reported three gun arrests this year compared to 10 last year.