Don’t live in fear of being shot

Citywide shooting incidents spiked 76.8% this March, with 99 reported in contrast with 56 in March 2020.

“You have to watch your back,” said Diallo, mother of a 16-year-old girl. “I feel more nervous, because anything can happen. People have guns, they get upset, they get intoxicated. You don’t know exactly what they’re doing.”

Diallo, a night shift nurse at a neighborhood hospital, calls for an Uber rather than walk home through the neighborhood.

“Sometimes, it scares me,” she said.

De Blasio’s comments came at a press conference where a reporter asked why he wasn’t talking more about the two most recent examples of city gun violence — and not visiting affected communities to blare the message that violence won’t be tolerated.

“It clearly won’t be tolerated because for years now we have been changing the whole reality of how we address crime and violence,” the mayor shot back.

“We had a horrible disruption last year — the perfect storm of COVID, but the NYPD is out there doing great work, more gun arrests than we’ve had in a quarter century. So of course we condemn all violence, but the best way to address violence is by getting guns off the streets, which the NYPD is doing by working with communities more closely,” he added.

Osa Aghedl, 29, from the Bronx, said he agreed with the mayor about not living in fear — but only because gun violence has become so commonplace that he’s accustomed to it.

“It’s a norm, it’s an everyday norm. How you gonna be afraid of something that you used to?” he said. “Anything can cause death, stray bullet, a random heart attack, car accident. You gonna stop do what you’re supposed to be doing because of a stray bullet? There’s a million and one ways to die, people choose what they supposed to do because of a man-made situation? I’m not gonna let a gun fear my life.”