Mayor Bill de Blasio commended the NYPD Thursday for their work as crime continues to spike amid concerns for public safety.
This past week has seen various subway attacks, a shooting in Times Square, and a police officer shot in Brooklyn just last night. De Blasio believes the re-opening of New York City will help reduce crime and simultaneously change the public perception that the city is currently unsafe.
“We address that perception by constantly showing the impact of the prosecutions of gangs, takedowns, precision policing but we also address it by bringing back the city in all the other ways,” said de Blasio.
“The rebirth of NYC, the activity the jobs, the economic recovery, supports the public safety turnaround and vice versa so we’re going to do them all together,” de Blasio continued.
De Blasio has been adamant that as New York City continues to open up, crime will begin to drop. There have also been concerns that the spike could affect the return of tourism to the city, as tourists could be wary of traveling to a dangerous city. De Blasio did promise to deploy more officers to Times Square after the shooting.
“In the end, people want to come to the city,” de Blasio said in a news conference earlier this week. “It is an overwhelmingly safe city when you look at New York City compared to cities around the country, around the world.”
De Blasio commended the job the NYPD has done recently in capturing the violent perpetrator behind the Times Square shooting, identified as Farrakhan Muhammad, was apprehended in Florida.
The suspect who shot Officer Brian McGurran in Brooklyn last night was also apprehended.
“The fact is we’ve got 35,000 police officers out there doing an amazing job getting guns off the street and stopping violence,” said de Blasio. “The bottom line is that if you create violence if you harm a fellow New Yorker, you will be caught, you will be prosecuted, and you will suffer the consequences.”
Crime jumped 30% in April compared to last year, and gun violence remains a problematic issue for the city. De Blasio has routinely downplayed the spike of crime, continually pointing to the re-opening of the city as part of his plan to quell the issue.
“We also address it (crime) by bringing back the city in all the other ways,” said de Blasio.
