Multiple Shootings Reported In 48 Hours In NYC
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Authorities said 25 people were shot during a 48-hour period over the weekend in New York City.
Among the boroughs, only Staten Island emerged without a shooting report.
The attacks include three fatalities on Sunday, another three on Saturday, a triple shooting in Prospect Lefferts Gardens and a shooting in Bedford-Styuvesant that left an 11-year-old girl severely injured.
Multiple Shootings Reported In 48 Hours In NYC
Police in Brooklyn said they were looking for Kevon Brown, 30, in connection with the triple shooting in Prospect Lefferts Gardens.
Just before 3:30 p.m. Sunday, police said Brown opened fire on two men on Lenox Road. A 25-year-old man was hit in the torso and a 42-year-old man was shot in the torso and leg, police said.
"I was in my house, heard loud gunshots," Mark Fils told CBS 2.
A person of interest in the triple shooting was in custody Monday, CBS 2 and 1010 WINS learned. It wasn't immediately clear if that person of interest was Brown.
"I heard six – the first initial and the four, the last – it was like, bang, bang, bang, bang, and that was it – everybody ran," one witness said.
Police said Brown then fired on two officers responding to the scene and took off. The officers were not hurt.
That's when police said Brown shot a 24-year-old man after threatening him on the street. The bullet grazed the victim in the neck, police said.
Brown then fled the scene.
The victims were all taken to the hospital. Two are in stable condition and the third is in critical condition.
It's unclear what sparked the violence, police said.
Brown is described as 5-foot-10, weighing 185 pounds with brown eyes and black hair. He was last seen wearing a white t-shirt and multi-colored shorts, police said.
Around 5:15 p.m. Sunday, police responded to a 911 call of a man shot in front of one of the buildings in the Albany Houses development in Brooklyn.
They found Damien Powell, 25, lying at the scene with gunshot wounds to his torso. He was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.
25 Shootings In 48 Hours
So far, there have been no arrests.
A 15-year-old girl was shot in the leg on Kelly Street in the Bronx on Saturday night. Police said they were looking for 23-year-old Raheem Simon in connection with that shooting, 1010 WINS' Juliet Papa reported.
Tayloni Mazyck, 11, was shot in the neck Friday evening at Gates and Throop avenues in Bedford-Sty when police said 17-year-old Kane Cooper opened fire at two other men.
She was rushed into surgery at the hospital, but doctors said she could be paralyzed.
"She's my baby. My baby. She's paralyzed from the neck down right now," Tayloni's father, Robert Mazyck, told CBS 2's John Slattery, "Let him rot in hell."
Cooper was arrested on several charges, including attempted murder, assault, criminal use of a firearm, and reckless endangerment.
The two days of bloodshed represents 5 percent of this year's roughly 440 shootings. That total is still a 23 percent decline from the total of 574 shot through this time last year.
Police To Step Up Patrols After Weekend Shootings
In the wake of the shootings, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly ordered an increase in police presence around affected areas – including more uniformed officers at public housing developments, the deployment of Skywatch towers and mobile TerraHawk camera vehicles to areas where the incident happened, and the deployment of plainclothes officers during shooting-prone hours.
"We're going to have Skywatch towers that are equipped not only with cameras, but also have police officers in them," NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne told 1010 WINS' Sonia Rincon. "In the areas, it gives them kind of a high ground, literally, to see from a distance what's happening."
Meanwhile, Warrants Division personnel will focus on the nine commands that experienced multiple shootings this past weekend, and pick up suspects without standing warrants. Browne said those people might have valuable information that can keep people safe.
Police are also monitoring gang activity in case of retaliation.
"If we pick up any intelligence along those lines, we'll try to intercept them," Browne said.
Bloomberg Reacts To Multiple Shootings Reported In 48 Hours In NYC
Also, as 1010 WINS' Juliet Papa reported, Mayor Michael Bloomberg spoke out in the wake of the violent weekend. He said he spoke to Tayloni's father.
"The right to leave your apartment, and not to be shot and killed or paralyzed, is a civil right," he said.
Mayor Bloomberg had a unique perspective on the number of murders from the bloody weekend in the city, arguing the focus is on the wrong statistics.
Bloomberg Reacts To Multiple Shootings Reported In 48 Hours In NYC
"Including this weekend, last week we had the fewest number of shootings in any week in almost a decade. Think about that: including this weekend. That's how safe the city has gotten," Bloomberg told reporters, including WCBS 880's Rich Lamb. "Now, one weekend with very hot temperatures. We all know that when the temperatures get up there, people's temper gets shorter and the crime rate does seem to go up. And certainly, one shooting is one too many but the bottom line is, including this weekend, we have the lowest number of shootings that we've had in a decade."
The mayor added shootings are down by about a quarter this year compared to the same time period last year, and last year saw a record low number of shootings.
Bloomberg also took the opportunity to praise the NYPD and to reaffirm his support for stop-and-frisk by saying he's not going to take from the police the tools that have driven the murder rate down, Lamb reported.
Anyone with information about any of the shootings is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 800-577 TIPS, visit www.nypdcrimestoppers.com or text their tips to 274637(CRIMES) then enter TIP577.
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