25-year record in gun arrests: Shea
Cops took 160 guns off New York City streets last week — a record number the department hasn’t seen in a quarter century, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said Tuesday.
“We set a 25-year high in gun arrests,” Shea said in back-toback interviews on NY1 and 1010 WINS. “I look at that two ways. It’s good that we got them off the street — but it’s bad that people are carrying them.”
The arrests were made between Aug. 31 and Sunday. An additional 37 gun arrests were made on Monday, he said.
“Thirty-two or 33 of [Monday’s arrests] were made in Brooklyn,” he noted during his NY1 interview. “Knock on wood, you also didn’t hear of a bad incident or an abuse of force. You didn’t hear of a cop pulling a gun out of somebody’s waistband and firing a shot or shooting somebody.”
Shea’s comments come as the city suffered through a bloody Labor Day weekend capped off by an incident in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, where five people, including a 6-year-old boy and his mom, were shot.
During his interview on 1010 WINS, Shea said there were 23 shootings from Friday through Monday, which he said is “in the range” of previous years.
“We average about 19 shootings on this weekend,” he said. “When you look at four years ago, the numbers were higher.”
“Considering the way things are going lately, it’s a success,” he added. “We have a lot more to do clearly.”
The summer was notoriously bloody with a hot streak of violence that left 107 people dead and more than 600 wounded by gunfire in July and August.
Compared with July and August 2019, the city saw a 171% jump in shootings, from 179 incidents to 486 this year. In those July and August 2020 shootings, 612 people were wounded, a staggering 178% increase from the 220 people shot during the summer of 2019.
Shea said stiffer punishments need to be given out to those caught with guns.
“The gun arrests are great, but the key here is getting consequences for the person who is carrying the gun,” Shea told NY 1.“We had an incident over the weekend in Manhattan where a person was sleeping on the train with a gun sticking out of his pocket. He was caught about a month ago with a gun.”
In that case, Deshawn Breland, 26, was arrested Sunday morning after he was found sleeping on an uptown A train at the Fulton St. station in lower Manhattan with the gun sticking out of his pocket. Previously, on July 15, cops arrested Breland, a member of the YG gang, with a gun in Brooklyn, officials said.
“When you are carrying a gun a month after being caught with a gun you’re obviously not worried about it,” Shea said. “The mindset of the criminal is that there is no consequences.”