Trending Topics

De Blasio and NYPD Shea show united front after weeks of distance

Sitting together at de Blasio’s morning City Hall press briefing, the mayor and Shea both blamed a court system beleaguered by COVID-19 for a rise in violent crime

Michael Gartland
New York Daily News

NEW YORK — Mayor de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea showed a united front Friday, appearing together publicly for the first time after weeks of mixed messages on the shootings that have wracked the city.

Sitting together at de Blasio’s morning City Hall press briefing, the mayor and Shea both blamed a court system beleaguered by the coronavirus for a rise in violent crime over the last several weeks.

“Just in the last year and a half, we have about 2,000 open gun cases. Half of them are indicted. We need the price of carrying an illegal firearm in New York City to be felt,” Shea said. “We don’t necessarily need more gun arrests. We need the people that are caught to be prosecuted fully, and then we need the court system open to get them off the street as quickly as possible.”

While the mayor and Shea have both been consistent in their complaints about the court system in recent days, they have also offered diverging opinions on the root cause of the uptick in violence, with Shea blaming the uptick in part on bail reform and de Blasio pointing to the “dislocation” people have felt due to the coronavirus.

On Friday, much of their focus was on the courts, which have by and large shut down because of the pandemic.

The two also unveiled the city’s new “End Gun Violence Plan,” which the mayor’s office touted in a press release as utilizing “the NYPD and community organizing to ensure New Yorkers safety.”

But de Blasio and Shea offered little detail about the plan in their Friday press briefing.

Shea said it would involve redeploying “hundreds and hundreds” of officers to areas hardest hit by violence and would rely increasingly on technology, including mobile cameras, license plate readers and “everything in between.”

©2020 New York Daily News

RECOMMENDED FOR YOU