Welcome back to school, New Yorkers! pic.twitter.com/PyWFxm4k3r
— Governor Kathy Hochul (@GovKathyHochul) September 5, 2024
Month: September 2024
The end of August brought some good news to Brooklyn: while there were occasional spikes in gun violence, this summer was the safest on-record in terms of gun violence and gun-related deaths.
Shootings in June, July and August were down 74% compared to 2020, per the Brooklyn District Attorney, and 11% compared to last year. Gun-related deaths were also down significantly — by 79% from 2020 and 24% from 2023. The trend continued beyond Brooklyn, per the latest NYPD crime statistics – across the city, homicide was down more than 50% compared to August 2023, and shooting incidents were down 14.9%.
In some nabes, shooting and homicides rose in August
Some Brooklyn neighborhoods broke the mold, though. In the Brooklyn South patrol, both homicides and shooting incidents were up during the 28-day period from Aug. 5-Sept. 1, per the latest NYPD data. On Aug. 7, a man was stabbed to death on a street corner in Marine Park. The same day, a 30-year-old man was fatally shot in Canarsie, according to police, and a series of other shootings and stabbings throughout the month left several victims badly injured.
Violence also marred the start of a new month, as a gunman shot five people, one of whom later died, at the West Indian Day Parade on Eastern Parkway on Sept. 1.
At a press briefing on Sept. 4, NYPD Chief of Department said that despite the violence at the parade, police had been “prepared.”
“During this weekend, we took numerous guns off the streets,” Maddrey said. “We kept hundreds of thousands, upwards of a million people safe … And then about halfway through the West Indian Day Parade, some fool decides to fire a gun into a crowd.”
Cops believe the shooting was targeted. The gunman had an intended victim, Maddrey said, and others were caught in the gunfire. He urged others who wished to bring guns into public spaces to “stay home,” and emphasized that the once-violent parade has become much safer in recent years.
A spike in sex crimes
Citywide, rape and felony assault increased slightly in August, and that increase was reflected in Brooklyn. Between Aug. 5-Sept. 1, rape jumped 61.5% in the Brooklyn North patrol, from 13 to 21. Year-to-date, 171 rapes have been reported in the patrol — up 13.2% from last year.The patrol also saw an increase in felony assaults and “UCR Rape,” which is defined differently by the Federal Bureau of Investigations. “Other sex crimes” — all sex crimes other than rape — declined by 1.7% in Brooklyn North, but are up 4.5% year-to-date.
Rape, assault, and UCR rape all dropped in Brooklyn South during that period, but the patrol reported a 58.3% rise in “other sex crimes.” On Aug. 11, police arrested two men in connection with a violent rape under the Coney Island boardwalk.
A rash of “forcible touching” incidents were reported in the 78th Precinct, which includes Park Slope, during August, according to police. Between July 24 and Aug. 14, four victims told police they had been followed and groped by an unknown male suspect. “Other sex crimes” are up 400% in the precinct, with ten reported between Aug. 5-Sept. 1, 2024.
Rapes were reported in 11 of Brooklyn’s 12 precincts during the most recent 28-day period, though the 78th Precinct was not among them. Felony assault also rose in 11 precincts, per NYPD data, and both rape and assault have increased slightly across Brooklyn year-to-date, despite decreases this month in Brooklyn South.
A whopping two-thirds of New York City public restrooms either had health and safety hazards or were kept closed during operating hours, according to a new City Council report released Thursday.
The survey, dubbed Nature’s Call: An Assessment of NYC Park Restrooms, includes observations from staffers with the council’s Oversight and Investigations Division of 102 public lavatories, according to the report. Council staffers gathered the data by visiting one men’s and one women’s bathroom in each of the city’s 51 Council Districts between July 9 and 11 between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.
The report’s chief finding was that the vast majority, nearly 67%, of the public restrooms surveyed either presented unsafe or unsanitary conditions, or were closed when they were supposed to be open — seeming to confirm common complaints about the facilities.
City Council Member Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan), chair of the body’s Oversight and Investigation Committee, said the report showed that many of the city’s public restrooms are in desperate need of repairs and better stewardship.
“This is a topic that gets discussed often but never resolved,” Brewer said in a statement. “Many of the restrooms would benefit greatly from simple fixes, such as replacing sinks or toilets. Others need much more. I urge the Administration to allocate funding for necessary bathroom upgrades.”
The report found that nearly 40% of the bathrooms visited by council staffers had litter strewn across the floor, while 23% had unsanitary or hazardous conditions, such as bodily fluids on surfaces. Additionally, 9% of bathrooms were closed during regular operating hours, but staffers only observed members of the public in line to use the facilities at one bathroom.
In addition, the council found that one in nine stalls they surveyed did not have a working lock and that garbage cans were missing from 30% of the lavatories they inspected. Other necessities such as soap, toilet paper, and hooks inside stalls were also found missing across many public restrooms.
“Public bathrooms, just like paved roads, schools, or fire stations, are critical infrastructure for New York City families,” Council Member Shekar Krishnan (D-Queens), who chairs the Parks and Recreation Committee, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the City Council’s own inspections of park bathrooms across the five boroughs frequently found broken locks, empty toilet paper holders, and wet, dirty floors. ”
The report is just one of several recent efforts the council and other branches of city government have launched to address longstanding issues with the cleanliness and availability of public bathrooms.
Those include council legislation that would force the city to finish building 151 new public bathrooms that it pledged to construct in 2022—so far, the city has only advanced plans to install 55 out of that commitment. Furthermore, Mayor Eric Adams announced plans earlier this summer to build 46 new restrooms and renovate another 36.