No surprise to Trends Journal subscribers: In March, when U.S. politicians launched the COVID War, we warned that people would be leaving densely populated urban areas for suburbs and ex-burbs to escape rising crime and the fear of being taken down by the coronavirus. (See our 21 April article, “CRIME ON THE RISE DURING THE GREAT LOCKDOWN.”)
The New York Police Department released sobering data last week that showed shootings in the city increased by about 95 percent when compared to the same period last year.
The Wall Street Journal reported that through last Sunday, there have been 1,359 shootings from 1 January 2020 through mid-November compared to 698 the year before. The shootings have been occurring predominately in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. Homicides in the city are also up more than 37 percent, the report said.
Maureen Callahan, a columnist for the New York Post, wrote in last week that it is “remarkable” to see just “how quickly decades of effort” in the City to make it the safest in the world has “completely unraveled.”
“Anyone who rides the subways these days has these dreadful thoughts: Will today be the day I’m attacked? Will this be the day shoved off the platform into an oncoming train? And: Where the hell is our mayor?”
New York Mayor DeBlasio spent a good part of the year trying to deal with the virus outbreak, protests over police brutality, and an already uneasy relationship with police in the City.
