SHELL SHOCK

NYC tops 1,000 shootings — with 4 mos. left in year

The city hit a grim milestone on Sunday when it tallied its 1,000th shooting of the year, according to NYPD figures, which also show an average of nearly 10 people were shot each day over the last four weeks.

With more than four months left in 2020, the Big Apple has recorded 1,004 shootings as of Aug. 30, according to the NYPD data released Monday. Last year, there had been just 537 in the same time period.

The shootings continued on Monday, when a broad-daylight gun battle played out in front of a Bronx day-care center with eight children inside, cops and the facility’s owner said.

The gunfire rang out at about 3 p.m. in front of Colorful Daycare Corp. at 2071 Walton Ave.

“Everyone [inside] is safe,” but had the kids been leaving at the time, “that would have been a problem,” said a woman named Emma who identified herself as the owner.

A 26-year-old man was shot in the chest and a 28-year-old man was shot in the arm and leg, cops said. Both were rushed to St. Barnabas Hospital by ambulance and were expected to survive.

All told, at least 23 people were struck by gunfire Sunday and Monday, cops and sources said.

The last time the city notched more than 1,000 shootings was in 2015 — and that was 1,138 for the whole year.

Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said Monday that the City Council’s cuts to the department’s budget have fueled the spike in shootings.

“It’s all about math. When you cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the budget, we have literally taken thousands of officers off the street this summer,” Shea said on 1010 WINS radio.

“And it’s done at a time when we know violence is going to peak, so it wasn’t a surprise. We were transparent — we told people when these negotiations were going on that this was likely to happen,” he added.

The council on July 1 passed an $88.1 billion budget with hopes of solving the Big Apple’s $9 billion budget shortfall — in part by cutting NYPD spending by $1 billion.

Arrests have been down for much of the year, NYPD data show. In May — weeks before the budget was passed — year-todate arrests were down 22 percent, from 96,000 in 2019 to just under 67,000 in 2020. Data also show shootings were rising before the budget was passed.

Meanwhile, earlier Monday, a man was shot at West 46th Street and Broadway at about 5:45 a.m.

First responders transported two people to the hospital in connection with the shooting. Their conditions were unclear, according to the FDNY.

Only one was a shooting victim, a spokesman said, adding that it wasn’t immediately clear what led to the gunplay.

Also on Monday, At about 1:30 a.m., a 19-year-old woman was shot in her left foot on Chisholm Street near Jennings Street in the Morrisania section of The Bronx, police sources said.

She reported hearing shots and feeling pain, and was taken to Lincoln Medical Center, according to sources.

About an hour earlier in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, a 28-year-old man was shot in the stomach at Sutter and Stone avenues as he walked out of a store, according to police sources.

He was rushed to Brookdale University Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries, cops said.

And just before 10 p.m. Sunday, a 33-year-old man was shot on Dekalb Avenue near Taaffe Place in Clinton Hill, authorities said.

He was taken to the Brooklyn Hospital Center, where he was listed in stable condition.

In total on Sunday, 18 people were shot in 14 incidents, according to preliminary data released by the NYPD. Three homicides were reported.

On that date in 2019, three shootings were reported with three victims. Two people were killed.