A daylight shooting outside an upscale Manhattan hotel left a 23-year-old man injured as gun crime in New York City spirals out of control with a 40 per cent increase over the past year.
Police said the victim was shot in the leg at 1.30pm Tuesday outside the Ludlow Hotel, where rooms go on average for $300 a night, in the Lower East Side, near the famed Katz’s Delicatessen.
The victim was expected to recover from the shooting, ABC 7 New York reported.
Two suspects retreated into a Lincoln Navigator with New Jersey license plates and drove away after the shooting. Police caught one of the men 20 minutes later on West Street in the Meatpacking District.
Citizen App video shows police and emergency personnel at the scene of the shooting. Police were still searching for the second suspect.
Police said a 23-year-old man was shot in the leg at 1:30 p.m. on March on Manhattan’s Ludlow Street. He was expected to recover
Police set up perimeter tape at the scene of the afternoon shooting along Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side
Two suspects retreated into a Lincoln Navigator with New Jersey license plates and drove away after the shooting
Police caught one of the shooting suspects a short time later in the Meatpacking District
Police continued searching for the second suspect in the daytime shooting
Witnesses said people ran for cover when the gunshots started.
‘Some guy just pulled up on some guy in the car and started beating him on the ground… and then all we heard were gunshots,’ a witness said. ‘We ran into the CVS. Thank God I’m safe.’
New York has experienced a huge increase in shootings so far this year.
New York Police Department statistics indicate shootings rose 40 percent through March 21 compared to the same period last year. Homicides went up 12 percent for the same time frame, while auto thefts are also up 15 percent this year.
The head of the union representing NYPD detectives slammed bail reform as a cause of the city’s recent soaring crime rates.
Citizen App video taken from a nearby rooftop shows police and emergency personnel at the scene of the shooting
The shooting occurred near the Ludlow Hotel and Katz’s Delicatessen, both established and well-known businesses in the trendy section of Manhattan
Bail is money posted by criminal suspects in order to secure their release before trial. The cash is returned after they appear in court to resolve their cases.
New York state enacted a sweeping law last January 1 banning cash bail requirements for suspects facing a wide range of charges, including stalking, assault without serious injury, burglary, many drug offenses and some kinds of arson and robbery.
‘It’s the fault of the elected officials. There’s a correlation between the bail reform and what’s happening in our city,’ Paul DiGiacomo, president of the Detectives’ Endowment Association, said in an interview with Fox News Monday.
‘They’re emboldening the criminal element. Shootings are up, crime is up, homicides are up, every crime imaginable is up and the people in the city are the ones that are suffering,’ DiGiacomo said.
Because coronavirus pandemic lockdowns took effect in the city in mid-March 2021, the difference is believed to be attributable to isolation measures that briefly sent crime plunging last year.
While gun violence has soared, other categories of crime are down significantly so far this year. Robberies dropped 28 percent, felony assault declined 8 percent, and burglaries were down 12 percent.
Cumulative shooting incident totals show NYC surpassing last year’s totals by 40% so far
Murders in the city are up 12% this year from last year, NYPD data shows
Paul DiGiacomo, right, president of the NYPD Detectives’ Endowment Association, appeared on Fox News Monday and blamed an increase in the city’s crime rate on bail reform measures
Shooting incidents are up 40% in NYC so far this year. Above, surveillance video captures a killer fatally shooting a man in the head outside a Bronx bodega on March 5
The deadliest crimes continue to rise in New York City, which has witnessed a string of shocking, violent attacks on subways and other public places.
Though the state scaled back the bail law last summer after an uptick in crime, bail remains optional for a wide range of offenses. Suspects in New York City are often released quickly after arrest without posting bail.
Defenders of the reforms say bail is unfair – and possibly racist – for those who cannot afford the payments, but critics say the legal changes let dangerous criminals loose to re-offend.
‘It’s definitely attributed to the bail reform and the recent change in laws in the city council,’ DiGiacomo said of the rising violent crime.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson asked if DiGiacomo thought lawmakers who enacted the changes believed they would result in decreased crime.
‘I think they were just riding the wave of what was popular, and they weren’t doing what was in the best interest of the people of the city of New York,’ DiGiacomo said.
