By Rocco Parascandola
New York Daily News
NEW YORK — The NYPD will make public for the first time information about incidents in which a gun is fired but no one is struck under terms of a local law passed by the City Council Thursday.
“I believe this legislation will strengthen transparency around gun violence in our communities and provide the Council and the public with additional information to better understand and address public safety concerns,” Councilman Oswald Feliz (D-Bronx ), chairman of the Public Safety Committee , said moments before the bill passed unanimously.
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The Daily News in May reported that while the NYPD routinely touts the city’s continued drop in shootings — and shares information publicly about shootings in which someone is wounded or killed — it does not disclose data about so-called “shots fired” incidents in which someone fires a gun but no one is struck.
To be sure, the NYPD does investigate such incidents, often releasing video of a wanted gunman, plus analyzing recovered shell cases to see if they match those found at other shooting scenes.
But the department said at the time that compiling shots-fired data “is not as straightforward or accurate as…shooting victims and shooting incidents, as it can be recorded in different ways.”
The NYPD also said, in a statement, that the data it does release “provides the clearest and most complete picture of gun violence in New York City.”
But the City Council said fuller transparency was needed, with Feliz and Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens ) in June sponsoring a bill that called for the release of shots-fired data.
The bill will go into effect next year, with the NYPD posting quarterly on its website basic information — date, time and location — about these gunfire incidents.
Police in a typical day respond to at least several shooting scenes that don’t involve someone actually wounded.
Shotspotter lerts and 911 callers generate a majority of such responses, with police officers often witnessing or hearing a gun being fired.
If video can’t be located and there is no ballistic evidence found at the scene — and there are no reliable witnesses — the job gets marked unfounded.
When evidence is found, the Police Department’s press office will issue an RMA, or request for media attention, in the hopes a story on such an incident generates a tip from the public.
On Tuesday, for instance, police released surveillance images of a man wanted for firing a gun on Aug. 4 on Hewitt Place in the Bronx. No one was struck.
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