MAYOR DE BLASE
Terrified mom begs for help from gun violence. Bill’s response? A shrug.
A woman who was near a broaddaylight shooting in Prospect Park South confronted Mayor de Blasio on his radio show about what he was going to do about skyrocketing crime. He blandly said the end of pandemic lockdowns should fix things.
A terrified mom confronted Mayor de Blasio point-blank on Friday about a daylight shooting near his old Brooklyn neighborhood — and he quickly lapsed into talking points to downplay the city’s surge in gun violence.
During de Blasio’s weekly appearance on WNYC radio, a caller who identified herself as Nicole said she had just parked her car with her preschooler son when bullets started flying around her just south of the Prospect Park Parade Grounds Tuesday afternoon.
“I was right there when it happened,” she said.
“I was happy my 4-year-old got in the house, and they found bullet casings right by where I was standing, in addition to other places on the block.”
Nicole added, “I know gun violence has increased in our area,” but noted, “This is in broad daylight, 4 in the afternoon.
“I’ve thought about this, and I want to know, what’s being done? What’s being done?” she asked.
When the show’s host, Brian Lehrer, asked how safe she felt,
Nicole said, “When I open the door, even to take the garbage outside or something like that, I very carefully look from one side to the other to the other.”
“And when I had to take my son down the block — I have a 1-yearold and a 4-year-old — I carried him right in front of me so if we had to duck and cover, we could do that,” she said.
De Blasio, who owns a home nearby in Park Slope but lives in city-owned Gracie Mansion in Manhattan, responded, “Nicole, first of all, as a parent, I’m feeling what you’re saying very deeply.
“It must have been terrifying and a parent’s first instinct, obviously, is anything to protect their children,” he said. “So I’m very sorry you went through that, and I’m sure it was very upsetting.”
But Hizzoner then pivoted to rehash the remarks he has been making since shootings began spiking amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“I think it comes back to this horrible combination of things we saw,” he said. “People didn’t have jobs; almost a million people lost their jobs. Schools were closed. Houses of worship were closed. Things really were falling apart.”
De Blasio also vowed that “this year is going to be very, very different because we’re going in the reverse direction, thank God.”
“So it’s very upsetting, but I know we will turn the tide, and New York City has before, and we will again,” he added.
His promises came two days after he dismissed concerns over a rash of recent shootings, including that of a tourist from Kansas who was hit by a stray bullet near Penn Station early Wednesday.
“We had a horrible disruption last year, the perfect storm of COVID,” he said hours after that shooting. “But the NYPD is out there doing great work, [making] more gun arrests than we’ve had in a quarter-century.”
De Blasio, who has repeatedly invoked the “perfect storm” metaphor while discussing the city’s crime problems, also claimed “we are in the process of overcoming that” following a doubling of subway murders in February.
Last September, he predicted that the plague of gun violence was “temporary” and that once coronavirus vaccines were available, “there will be a turnaround.”
Reached by The Post Friday evening, Nicole said de Blasio seemed “kind and compassionate.”
As for his assurances that crime will go down, she said, “I hope it does, too, but I just hope the programs are in place to do that.”
Nicole also noted she and de Blasio “didn’t have a lot of time [to speak] because the mayor got there late.”
“I would have loved to hear a little bit more about what he had to say . . . there just wasn’t time,” she added about the perpetually tardy mayor.
The NYPD said two people were wounded in Tuesday’s shooting at East 18th Street and Caton Avenue.
A 43-year-old woman was shot in the left thigh and a 53-year-old man was hit in the arm. The shooting was gang-related and neither victim was the intended target, a police source said.