In his first press conference since becoming acting police commissioner, Edward Caban depicted a city both safe and at the same time overrun with youth violence.
In one moment, he swept his hand over a table filled with guns and declared that shootings are down 25% so far this year. In the next moment, he recounted the bedside promise made to a 5-year-old girl gravely wounded by a stray bullet as two men shot at a moving car.
“This administration, which I have been a part of since day one, the NYPD has made our fight against gun violence a top priority,” Caban said.
Caban later brought Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey to the podium to discuss youth violence.
“This was the best weekend, the safest [pre-Fourth of July] weekend we had in 20 years with only nine shooting incidents,” Maddrey said. “Unfortunately, we had some notable shootings with young people.”
Since 3 p.m. Friday, police said there were nine shooting incidents, one fatal, that have so far yielded one arrest. Seven of the shootings took place in the Bronx.
Police said two men have been identified in a Bronx shooting where the 5-year-old girl was severely injured by a stray bullet. They are still investigating another shooting that injured another four people, a girl, a woman, and two men.
The only arrest announced related to shootings this weekend was in connection to the shooting death of a 15-year-old boy at Riverbank State Park in Harlem.
Police blamed the string of violence on large, “lawless” groups of young people, adding that 14% of all shooting arrests this year have been of people under the age of 18. Since 2020, Michael Lipetri, chief of crime control, said youth-involved shootings have increased like “never seen before.”
“When young crew members get arrested with a gun and then the other crew members see that person the very next day walking around, it empowers some individuals to carry a gun,” Lipetri said.
Overall, shootings in New York City are down over 26% this year to date,…
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