NYPD adds more Neighborhood Safety Teams to crime-ridden areas

By Chantee Lans, Eyewitness News

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    NEW YORK CITY (WABC) — The city is beefing up its efforts to get guns and shooters off the streets.

The NYPD will deploy five more of its anti-gun teams to some of the city’s most violent neighborhoods.

It comes after a particularly violent weekend where 29 people were shot on Friday through Sunday. That’s up from six people shot on the same three days last year.

Some 170 officers were part of the initial rollout.

There are about 300 more that will be added on a rolling basis as they are trained.

Starting Monday, the NYPD will put five more Neighborhood Safety Teams on the streets.

They’ll head to a precinct in Queens, Staten Island, Canarsie, Brooklyn, and two in Manhattan. One of the Manhattan precincts is in Harlem, the other in East Harlem.

The first wave of the new anti-gun units started patrolling last Monday in 28 areas where shootings have increased during the pandemic.

The initiative is a key part of Mayor Adam’s crime-fighting plan.

Sunday, police responded to a subway shooting and a deli shooting just minutes apart in East New York, two people were shot.

On Friday, a woman was attacked in Harlem near her home.

Police say a man tried to rape the woman in between parked cars on West 123rd Street.

Monday morning, that woman remains in critical condition.

Neighbors are still in shock.

“The fact that we didn’t see anything immediately and we weren’t able to catch him, it makes us very angry. Because we take care of each other on this block,” said Chris I., a neighbor.

“It’s shocking when you see something happen to someone you encounter all the time. And it throws you off. It makes you more aware of what could actually happen here,” said Tyrrell Ben-Avi, a neighbor.

Mayor Adams is expected to speak at one of the rollouts of the neighborhood safety teams Monday afternoon in the Bronx.

“These deployments are flexible and will adapt to changing conditions in the field,” Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said.

There have been 253 shooting incidents with 284 victims so far this year.

There were also five incidents over the weekend when shots were fired but no one was struck. In addition, there were six stabbings, one of them was fatal.

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