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Citywide Crime is Down but Shootings in Harlem Are Up

By Gustavo Solis | July 2, 2015 4:00pm | Updated on July 5, 2015 8:44pm
 Police inspect shell casings after four people where shot when a person opened fire in front of a deli on 132nd near Madison Avenue in broad daylight Wednesday, June 24, 2015.
Police inspect shell casings after four people where shot when a person opened fire in front of a deli on 132nd near Madison Avenue in broad daylight Wednesday, June 24, 2015.
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DNAinfo/Ben Fractenberg

HARLEM — A local spike in gun-violence is bucking a city-wide trend of historic low crime numbers in the rest of the five boroughs, NYPD officials said Wednesday. 

So far in 2015, overall crime numbers are the lowest they've been in more than 20 years. But there have been more shootings across the city than this time last year, particularly in Harlem and East Harlem, according to data from the NYPD.

In the 23rd, 25th, and 32nd precincts, there were 34 shooting victims between January and the middle of June, compared to 21 during the same time last year, data shows.

This year's rise in shootings has primarily been coming from gang violence in those three precincts, according to Deputy Commissioner of Operations Dermot Shea.

“That’s driven by Manhattan North, and particularly we see increases in the Harlem area, be it the 23, the 25, the 32 Precinct, and some gang fights that are currently trending in that area,” he said.

One of those gang-related shootings involved Tareek Arnold, 23, who escaped police custody while being transported from the 32nd Precinct to Manhattan Central Booking.

“I don’t see [crime] going down I see the spike,” said East Harlem anti-violence advocate Clark Pena. “You also have to understand is that most of these shootings — even though they say 23, 25, 32 — they are happening within the PSAs.”

PSAs, or Public Service Areas, are units that patrol public housing developments.

Many of this year’s shootings, including the fatal shooting of Jordan Barber at the Polo Grounds, have happened in or near public housing developments. It should not be shocking that a neighborhood with a high concentration of NYCHA developments has a high number of shootings, Pena said.

Many of the gangs responsible for the shootings come from these developments, Pena added.

“Hopefully with this graduating class of 800 [officers], some of them will go to the PSAs,” he said.

Shea also said the Rockaways in Queens and Coney Island in Brooklyn are contributing to the rising number of shooting incidents. The department is moving additional resources to the hot zones to address the problems, the Deputy Commissioner said.