By JASMINE GOMEZ 

Councilman Andy King held his annual Gun Violence Rally outside the Evander Childs Campus on June 2 at a time when the northwest Bronx has seen a spike in shootings.

Gun violence incidents have happened on the outskirts of Bedford Park, where a 20-year-old Hispanic man was shot on May 22 just an hour before a street festival was to start. The shooting came on the same day as the fatal shooting of a 14-year-old boy on the Concourse. Both incidents were deemed gang-related. The Bedford Park incident happened within the borders of the 52nd Precinct, which has 12 reported shootings when compared to six the same time last year.

The shootings also come at a time when the city has eased up on stop and frisk, a police tactic that Mayor Bill de Blasio believed has placed a wedge between the NYPD and minority neighborhoods.

Stop and frisk incidents dropped to 46,000 recorded stops in 2014, down from 145,000 in 2013, according to a report by The New York Times.

At the King news conference, Erica Ford, co-chair of National Gun Violence Awareness Month, argued the limiting of stop and frisk has nothing to do with the upsurge in shootings. “We should stop saying stop and frisk stopped because it didn’t stop. Crime is existing because it is the nature of our communities and poverty is on the rise, unemployment is on the rise, the problems in schools are on the rise,” said Ford.

Dr. Darrin Porcher, a professor at Pace University and Monroe College, said the stop and frisk reduction is just one aspect for the spike. “What we have now is you still have the same city that’s being policed, but with a proportionately lower number of police officers that are doing the job,” said Porcher, adding officers may feel intimidated making stops for fear of scrutiny or disciplinary action.

Other reasons for the increase in shootings can also be attributed to more cases of domestic violence, and gang culture, a topic de Blasio touched on in recent interviews.

Porcher, a former NYPD lieutenant, said the most useful tool in combating gun violence will be innovative technology, such as surveillance cameras in areas where people do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy or through equipment such as the ShotSpotter, a gun noise detection program.

King’s approach towards easing this shooting spike is more funds for after school programs in hopes of deterring adolescents from crimes, noting that some of the recent shootings have been committed by underage gang members. “People want to join gangs because they want to be a part of something… but if you give them something positive to be a part of, you can deter a lot of this behavior,” said King.

admin

Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.