SHOCKING VIDEO: FedEx Deliveryman Shot In Back In Brooklyn
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- The NYPD said Tuesday shootings are at the highest levels they've been in more than a decade.
But as more innocent bystanders become victims, neither Police Commissioner Dermot Shea nor Mayor Bill de Blasio have any fresh solutions, CBS2's Ali Bauman reported Tuesday.
"Where we stand today, we're looking to close out the year at a 14-year high," Shea said.
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The grim prediction from the commissioner came shortly before Chopper 2 flew over a shooting investigation in the Bronx, where officers said a man was shot in the leg at around 5 p.m. near the Grand Concourse.
Just one day earlier in Brownsville, Brooklyn, a uniformed FedEx deliveryman was leaving the Van Dyke Houses. Surveillance video shows a man holding the door open pulling out a gun and shooting the worker in the back of his neck, Bauman reported.
As the gunman runs off, the 44-year-old deliveryman crawls after him, before being taken to the hospital. The NYPD is looking for the gunman.
Police said nothing was stolen. It's unclear why the driver was targeted.
The incident happened at 11 a.m. and was one of 10 shootings in the city on Monday alone.
Right across the street from an elementary school in East Flatbush, a 24-year-old man was painting inside a barbershop at around 8 p.m., when two men walked in and shot him in the shoulder, police said.
Over the weekend in Queens, a 76-year-old man was sleeping in the Madison York Assisted Living Facility on Corona Avenue when police believe a stray bullet pierced his sixth-floor window, blasting a metal fragment into the man's neck.
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At the start of this week, there had been 1,433 shootings this year, compared to 735 shootings by this time in 2019.
But as the violence spikes, the police commissioner offered the same rationale he's had all year, blaming bail reform, along with the court backlog due to the coronavirus pandemic.
"You can't identify and take guns out of the hands of violent people that want to use those guns and not have consequences. And that is by far the largest problem that we're facing," Shea said.
Meanwhile, the mayor continues to show bright-eyed optimism that crime will subside when the pandemic does.
"We are seeing much more connection between police and community through neighborhood policing. We're seeing many more gun arrests. We're going into a new year with a new approach that I think will help us turn the tide more," de Blasio said.
Gun arrests are up year to date. In the last month, the NYPD has made 468 gun-related arrests, more than double the gun arrests for the same period last year.
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