It’s going to be a long, bloody summer in the city, Mayor Bill de Blasio warned Monday — while offering no new solutions on how to combat the Big Apple’s staggering gun violence.
As shootings continue to spiral out of control — and now include the senseless weekend killing of a 10-year-old Queens boy — Hizzoner predicted that the bloodshed will only drag on in the coming months.
“For the rest of the year, we’re going to be dealing with a major challenge,” he told reporters at his daily press briefing.
“We are doing everything we can here in this city, but we need help,” Hizzoner insisted, virtually throwing up his hands at the crisis.
“We need help from the federal government, we need help from the state government,’’ the mayor said, referring to proposals calling for more gun control and additional services for parolees.
Shootings have already surged nearly 70 percent so far this year over 2020, including Saturday’s fatal gun-down of fifth-grader Justin Wallace, who became collateral damage amid an ongoing dispute between neighbors over a shared driveway.
Last month alone, there were roughly 150 shootings — or 163 percent more than two years ago.
Murders have risen nearly 12 percent so far this year, too, but compared to 2019, that figure soars to nearly 50 percent.
Yet de Blasio on Monday offered nothing in the way of new ideas to stem the crime crisis.
Instead, he once again touted the 28 percent increase in gun seizures by the NYPD — even as the shooting epidemic continues despite that.
He also reiterated his months-old prescription for getting epidemic of gunfire under control, including by putting 1,400 newly graduated cops on the beat, boosting funding for community groups that work with teens and young adults to stop gang violence and expanding the city’s high-tech gunfire monitoring system known as ShotSpotter.
A police source told The Post that after de Blasio took office, “We expected the storm was coming and the typical blame game.”
A Brooklyn detective added that the mayor “has nerve’’ to blame the city’s woes on everyone and everything else.
“He is the main reason why no one can do anything about it,” the cop said. “He started the negative police rhetoric where people disrespect cops.’’
The moms of young classmates of Justin Wallace said they are enraged at the state of the city.
“The gun violence has to stop! Innocent children are being hurt here,’’ said Carla Small, whose 11-year-old daughter Carlada Lee was friends with Justin since kindergarten.
Natalie Lungrin, the mother of another classmate, 10-year-old Kaylh Lungrin, said, “It’s getting worse!
They have all these shelters and different homeless people into the community, right down the block! These kids need to be uplifted, but the city is downgrading their lives.”
Even de Blasio acknowledged that his current course of action would likely be unable to staunch the bloodshed in the coming hot months — when shootings typically rise with the mercury.
The latest victims of city gunplay also included a 31-year-old man who was shot dead at a Brooklyn housing development in suspected gang violence early Monday — one of at least four people struck by bullets across the five boroughs overnight, according to cops.
Speaking at a press conference later Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo dismissed de Blasio’s criticism of the state’s action on parolees and recidivists — and said he is “not thrilled” with the mayor’s handling of crime in the Big Apple.
“As far as the mayor is concerned — and you know what I think about him — I’m just with the majority of New Yorkers,’’ Cuomo said. “I’m a Queens boy. So I’m with Queens boys and The Bronx boys and the Manhattan women. Not thrilled.”
The third-term Democratic governor, who has been beset by myriad controversies and scandals the past year, said the Big Apple’s economy won’t recover if the next mayor doesn’t get its crime and homelessness issues under control.
“The economy will come back if it’s not being stopped by crime, and quality of life,” Cuomo said.
“Crime, quality of life, homeless is an artificial ceiling where people say, ‘I’m not going to visit New York. There’re people getting shot all over the place. I’m not going to invest in my small business. I’m worried about crime. I’m not going to buy an apartment in that neighborhood. There’s homeless people on the street corner who are throwing rocks.’ It has to be addressed.”
Meanwhile, de Blasio called Justin Wallace’s shooting “just the most painful thing.
“It’s horrible,” he said. “A 10-year-old child should be alive today, should be in school right now, killed by a cowardly horrible human being who fired shots just randomly into a home.
“The pain that Justin’s parents are feeling right now, no parent should ever go through that.”
Additional reporting by Larry Celona, Bernadette Hogan, Kevin Sheehan, Sean Conlon, Aaron Feis and Craig McCarthy
De Blasio offers no solution to gun violence after shooting of Queens boy - New York Post
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