In a holiday that is generally marked by barbecues, fireworks and jubilee celebrations, the Bronx saw a surge of bloodshed over the long weekend.
Some of the borough’s top political leaders held a press conference on Thursday in Joyce Kilmer Park to address separate gun violence incidents that took place in the Bronx over Independence Day weekend — incidents that left several people, including a few children, injured or dead.
Borough President Vanessa Gibson said there were 16 shooting incidents across the Bronx involving 25 shooting victims — including a 5-year-old and a 12-year-old girl — from June 30 through July 4.
“This holiday has accounted for the most number of (nationwide) mass shootings of any other holidays in nearly a decade,” Gibson said Thursday referencing mass shootings on the Fourth of July in Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. “. … This is not normal. This should never be acceptable in our society.”
Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark, state Sen. Jamaal Bailey, as well as New York City Councilmembers Rafael Salamanca and Marjorie Velázquez, also spoke about the importance of decreasing borough-wide violence.
Last Friday, a 5-year-old girl was sitting in a car with her father at White Plains Road and East 213rd Street in the Bronx at around 7 p.m. when what appeared to be a round of stray bullets struck her in the back. Cops took the little girl to Montefiore Medical Center, and she was later listed in stable condition.
Police sources told sister affiliate AMNewYork Metro after the incident that the family had been attending a vigil for a man who was fatally killed at the same location one day prior. After visiting the little girl in the hospital on Sunday, newly minted NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban and NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell told reporters they’d prosecute a suspect for the shooting in “short fashion.”
The 12-year-old girl was one of four victims in the second shooting,…
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