With Shootings Spiking, Mayor De Blasio Says He's Going To Stick To His Plan To End The Violence
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- More gun violence erupting in New York City has prompted more calls for change. But as cops face the dilemma of how to stop the bullets in an anti-police environment, Mayor Bill de Blasio is keeping to his plan.
Canarsie resident Isaac Benezara spoke not long after six people were shot in his neighborhood in the span of just one hour on Monday night, and not far from the spot where 1-year-old the Davell Gardner Jr. was shot and killed the day before. The incident was part of the latest bloody total -- 18 people shot total.
"As the sun goes down, the thieves and thugs come out," Benezara said.
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The ongoing violence has prompted clergy and community leaders like Tony Herbert to call out de Blasio, warning him about signing police reforms that will jeopardize the safety of more New Yorkers.
"What we're seeing out here is that we need these police out on the street. We need to have that Anti-Crime Unit out here, a modernized version with some monitoring to take place, but we need this intel in so we can get the guns off the street," Herbert said.
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CBS2's Marcia Kramer tried to get answers from the mayor, but with the body count mounting he offered the same solutions.
"Get communities more deeply involved in fighting back against the violence," de Blasio said Tuesday.
He ducked the question about redeploying the Anti-Crime Unit, undercover cops whose job was getting guns off the street. It was disbanded during the anti-cop demonstrations.
MORE: What Was The NYPD's Anti-Crime Unit And What Does It Being Disbanded Mean?
Kramer asked, "Why do you say there is no correlation between disbanding the Anti-Crime Unit and the horrific surge in shootings when logic dictates otherwise? And shouldn't (Police Commissioner) Dermot Shea be fired if he can't get the shootings under control?"
"Dermot Shea is one of the people that made the city safe and helped us find a way through extraordinarily challenging circumstances. He felt, and I agreed with him, it was important to make a change in our strategy, de Blasio responded.
This as cops face the additional dilemma of how to make arrests in the face a new City Council bill that not only bars chokeholds but bans cops from sitting, kneeling, or standing on the suspect's back or stomach during an arrest.
An NYPD training video obtained by CBS2 instructs cops on what not to do. The video offers few solutions on how to actually make an arrest, which is of great concern to former cop Joe Giacalone, who is currently a professor at John Jay College.
"I think what the City Council doesn't understand is you're going to see a rise in the use of non-lethal devices such as Tasers, nightsticks, and pepper spray. They're going try to incapacitate people before they have to place handcuffs on them," Giacalone said.
Police experts that spoke to Kramer said the bill is going to make it more difficult to arrest the bad guys and it could lead to more innocent victims, like Davell Gardner Jr.