Police officers search a playground for evidence at a crime scene where two individuals were injured by gunshots on Atlantic Avenue on July 18, 2020 in the Brooklyn borough of New York, US. (Photo: AP)
NEW YORK, Dec. 25 (Xinhua) -- In New York City, 1,828 people have been shot so far this year, surpassing the number of 1,821 in the same period of 2020 which was the worst crime surge year in more than a decade.
New York Police Department (NYPD) data show that by Dec. 19, the number of shootings in the city's five boroughs reached 1,526, as compared with 1,490 during the same period last year.
In the past few days following Dec. 19, shootings continued in the city, including five people shot on Christmas Eve in two separate incidents in Brooklyn, and a 27-year-old NYPD school safety agent, who was shot dead on Thursday in Queens, with two others injured in the same case, according to the NYPD. This makes this year's number of shooting victims and incidents even larger.
According to statistics on the NYPD website, NYC recorded 1,868 shooting victims in 2020, a steep rise of 102 percent over the number of 923 in 2019, while shooting incidents rose from 777 to 1,531, a rise of 97 percent.
In 2020, shooting victims were mostly minority, with 73.9 percent of them being black and 22.5 percent Hispanic, according to NYPD statistics. Blacks and Hispanics also accounted for 65.0 percent and 26.4 percent of murder victims, respectively, in New York City in 2020.
