Residents rip Blaz claim N.Y.ers
Mayor de Blasio boldly insisted Wednesday New Yorkers are unrattled after 34 of them failed to dodge a fatal bullet last month, after a 5-year-old Brooklyn girl was grazed by a gunshot Monday outside her home, and after a Times Square tourist who’d just taken in a Mets game was hit by a stray shot walking to his hotel.
“I do not believe New Yorkers are living in fear,” the mayor declared. “It’s just not who we are. I believe there are some real issues we have to address . ... But New Yorkers don’t live in fear. They keep moving forward. believe that.”
That’s not how Marlene Alam, 67, and a Flatbush resident for six decades, sees it.
“That’s bulls—t,” she said hours after the mayor’s assertion. “I got attacked on a train twice. ... I have a lot to tell de Blasio. Tell him to come to East 21st St. and Courtelyou Road around 11 [p.m.]. People are walking around here with mental illnesses.
“They’re on goddam crack. They’re beating up senior citizens. It’s crazy.”
One 32-year-old stay-at-home mom with three girls — including the 5-year-old grazed early Monday evening by a stray bullet outside their East New York home — dismissed the mayor’s bravado.
I really
“I don’t have any interest in politicians because what they say is only for show,” she said of de Blasio’s remarks. “It seems like an empty statement. He’s not really saying anything,” she said.
“What is his real plan? Is there an actual plan? Is there any plan at all?” she asked. “I don’t really feel safe with shots going off in broad daylight,” she added. “You don’t know where they’re coming from, and you don’t know where the guns are coming from.”
Fatoumata Diallo, 32, echoed her Flatbush neighbor’s fears as the NYPD’s latest crime stats showed overall crime up last month by 2.4% compared to March 2020, a figure driven by a 36% jump in murders — 34 this year compared to 25 in March 2020.