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Upper West Side Shootings on the Rise in 2015, Data Shows

By Emily Frost | June 29, 2015 5:45pm
 The neighborhood saw a spike in shootings this past spring compared to last year, data shows.
The neighborhood saw a spike in shootings this past spring compared to last year, data shows.
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UPPER WEST SIDE — Shootings in the 24th Precinct are on the rise so far this year, with four through the first six months of the year compared to just one during the same time period last year, data shows.

Between Jan. 1 and June 21, there have been four shootings resulting in injuries or deaths in the precinct, which stretches from West 86th Street to 110th Street.

Most recently, a 26-year-old man was shot and killed in his father's store on June 19. 

"We want to try to predict the next one...we’ve been working hard to do that," said Capt. Marlon Larin, commanding officer of the 24th Precinct. 

The four shootings were all independent of each other and thus make it harder to predict where the next one will happen, he explained.

"It’s easier to predict retaliatory shootings," Larin said.

In late April, a group of teens got in a fight on a Sunday afternoon and one was shot in the leg.

A drug-dealing dispute on April 8 led to a shooting in which a 25-year-old man was paralyzed. 

And late on the night of March 22, an 18-year-old victim was shot three times by a rival gang, police said.

The shootings have all happened between West 104th and West 109th streets near Amsterdam and Columbus avenues. 

Still, police are not "indiscriminately sweeping" the area, Larin said. 

Instead, "we want to target the players we know lean toward possessing guns or have shot people before or are being released from jail," he explained.

The 24th Precinct received 12 new officers this year and expects another six as of July 2, Larin noted.

They'll also be watching data relating to where shots were fired and sending more police to those locations.

"We want the community’s help to tell us [where shots are fired]," he said. "That goes a longer way than us trying to do the guesswork."

Data shows that 577 people had been shot during the first six months of the year across the city. Overall, the number of shooting victims is up 10 percent so far this year as compared to the same period last year.

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