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Fewer NYC shootings this year on July 4, usually a deadly holiday
By
Brittany Kriegstein
and
Samantha Max
Published Jul 6, 2023
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Brittany Kriegstein/Gothamist
By
Brittany Kriegstein
and
Samantha Max
Published Jul 6, 2023
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A citywide drop in shootings so far this year continued into Independence Day, as both police and community groups worked to prevent armed conflicts on a holiday often plagued by gun violence.
There were 23 shootings between July 1 and the morning of July 5, acting NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban said at a press conference on Thursday. That’s down from 43 during the same time period in 2022. At the height of the pandemic-era crime spike in 2020, there were 49 shootings in that same timeframe, Caban said. Two shootings reported by the NYPD between July 4 and the early morning hours of July 5 this year were fatal — one in Fordham Heights and one in Inwood.
Caban attributed the decline in shootings to the department’s focus on getting illegal guns off the streets and an increased police presence in areas with high crime rates.
“That is not just a number,” he said. “These are hundreds of real people, hundreds of families who are spared the devastating impacts of gun violence.”
Nationwide, July 4 and 5 tend to account for a disproportionate number of mass shootings, and this year was no exception. The Gun Violence Archive tallied at least 15 across the country this year, including one in Paterson, New Jersey. But experts have also noted a downward trend in shootings and homicides overall in many cities so far in 2023, including in New York.
Here, in the first six months of 2023, shootings have declined more than 25% and homicides have fallen about 10% compared to the same period in 2022, according to NYPD data. Experts said various factors are likely contributing to the drop in violence, and that it’s hard to isolate any one cause.
Peter Moskos, a criminologist and professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the double-digit decrease in shootings is more than a statistical blip. He said it correlates with an increase in enforcement.
“They’re being proactive,” said Moskos.
While the NYPD credits the downward trend to the department’s focus on hot spots and drivers of violence, as well as its work getting illegal guns off the streets, community organizations working to prevent violence said their non-police teams have also helped calm neighborhood tensions and stop cycles of retaliation.
“It is not by happenstance or chance that we had no shootings over the holidays,” said Edward-Richard Hines, a pastor with the 67th Precinct Clergy Council, also known as the God Squad.
He said the organization started its violence prevention efforts early this summer and canvassed East Flatbush to urge residents to keep the peace during the Fourth of July festivities. Hines said more programming for kids and teens in the neighborhood has also helped to keep them out of trouble.
Dana Rachlin, co-founder of We Build the Block in Brooklyn, said anti-violence groups are finally regaining their footing after the pandemic.
The memorial for Angel Cruzeta, 30, on Vermilyea Avenue in Inwood.
Brittany Kriegstein/Gothamist
“We have to take a breath here and realize the shock of COVID-19 during 2020 for these institutions and organizations,” she said. “It took some time to recuperate. And now you’re seeing what happens.”
Rachlin said the safety infrastructure that was building before the pandemic — strategies like neighborhood policing, trauma-informed care and recruiting “credible messengers” from the community to defuse tensions and prevent retaliatory shootings — “got shook” at the height of the pandemic.
“Now the pieces are coming together,” she said.
But the extra presence of both police and violence interrupters didn’t stop every shooting. On Wednesday afternoon, Jeremy Molina said his team at Bronx Rises Against Gun Violence West was scrambling to figure out how two people had been shot — one fatally — within their section of the borough in the early morning hours of July 5.
Molina said members of his team were talking to residents to get the details on what happened and going to the hospital to calm down friends and family who might want to retaliate. He said maybe next year the group’s violence interrupters would slightly shift their schedules to have more of a presence in the neighborhood when shootings are likely to happen. But he said the holiday poses a particular challenge for people working to curb gun violence.
“With all the fireworks going off, it’s easy to disguise gunshots,” Molina said. “This is a heavily populated area. It’s a lot of historical beef.”
For someone who’s thinking “like a shooter,” he said, “you couldn’t choose a better time to let off shots.”
Residents respond to large police presence in the Bronx
Elsewhere in the borough, several residents of Wheeler Avenue in Soundview were frustrated by the heavy law enforcement presence during a neighborhood gathering to celebrate the Fourth of July.
Neighbors said they’d been looking forward to the community’s annual block party at the intersection of Wheeler and Westchester avenues: a family-friendly get-together that’s been a local tradition for two decades, by some accounts. Residents said the whole block chips in to provide food, drinks and entertainment.
But this year was different. Residents said they were cooking, eating and listening to music when, a few hours into the celebration, dozens of cops descended on the party, telling residents to leave and shutting down the festivities. As trays of food went cold, neighbors said they were afraid of what the police would do.
A video circulating on social media from digital news agency Loudlabs News NYC showed dozens of uniformed Community Response officers assembled in a line around 10:30 p.m., blocking Wheeler and Westchester avenues. A helicopter with a spotlight circled overhead.
Some residents said they felt threatened. Others said they felt disrespected or singled out for shooting fireworks — a popular Fourth of July pastime they said residents of other communities enjoy without being harassed by police.
Bodega worker Yohan Sepulveda said his 24-hour store was counting on the party to boost sales and that he was disappointed by the police response. The NYPD did not immediately respond to questions about the department’s actions at the barbecue.
But Cano Acevedo, who was staying near the location of the block party and has relatives in law enforcement, said police were just doing their job to keep the peace in a chaotic situation.
“People take for granted the liberties that they have,” he said. “And those that are assigned to be somewhat of a force field to keep all the madness away, so they don’t have to deal with the crappy aspect of everyday living wherever it is that you’re going.”
Neighbors grieve in Inwood
As police were intervening in the Wheeler Avenue festivities, a different situation was unfolding a few miles away on Vermilyea Avenue in Inwood. At 1:45 a.m., officers responded to a call about a man shot on the sidewalk.
Angel Cruzeta, a 30-year-old father with a second child on the way, had been shot in the face. He was pronounced dead at NYC Health and Hospitals/Harlem.
On Thursday, wax from a candlelit memorial for Cruzeta dripped onto the sidewalk as passersby stopped to pay their respects. Neighbor Eric Jimenez said he wasn’t outside himself when the violence erupted, but said Cruzeta had just been on the phone with his fiancée in the Dominican Republic, who had just found out that she was pregnant with their second child. Jimenez said Cruzeta was close with his 6-year-old son and worked hard locally as a taxi driver.
Police have yet to make an arrest in Cruzeta’s killing.
Police have charged two men in the shooting death of 18-year-old Moise Figueroa, which happened in the Concourse Village neighborhood of the Bronx less than an hour after Cruzeta was shot. Figueroa’s family was not immediately reachable for comment.
Tagged
new york city
public safety
Brittany Kriegstein
Brittany Kriegstein covers all breaking news around New York City, with a focus on crime and gun violence. Got a tip? Email Brittany at [email protected].
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Samantha Max
Samantha reports on whether New Yorkers feel safe and whether the institutions that are supposed to protect them are working. Before coming to WNYC/Gothamist, she spent three years covering the criminal justice system in Tennessee for Nashville Public Radio. Her reporting on Nashville's police department received multiple awards, including the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize. Samantha was also part of the inaugural class of Report for America, a service journalism program that sends up-and-coming reporters to local newsrooms across the country. She is a Northwestern University grad, a Baltimore native and fluent in Spanish. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal: samanthamaxwnyc.93.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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