Eric Adams offers his own cash as a reward to catch broad-daylight sidewalk shooter

The Democratic frontrunner in the New York City mayoral race, Eric Adams, is to front $2,000 of his own money as part of a reward to catch the gunman who terrorized a Bronx neighborhood, along with two young children, on Friday afternoon.

‘It tore me apart to watch those children scramble as gunshots were still going off,’ Adams said at the scene of the shooting on Saturday.  

‘This is New York, not some third-world country. We can’t be silent. Our silence is just as dangerous … Our children must be safe.’ 

Shocking video that was released by the NYPD on Friday, saw a boy and girl, believed to be around the ages of five and ten, walking together on the sidewalk before becoming embroiled in an attempted assassination of a person in a red sweater. 

Adams urged anyone with information about the shooter to reach out to police or religious leaders and bring the wanted man to justice. 

Police believe that Hassan Wright, 24, was the intended target.

Wright suffered gunshot wounds to his back and both legs but as he attempted to escape with his life, he knocked down the two children all the while the gunman continued to shoot several times in their direction.

At one point, the supposed target manages to get up but then trips over the youngsters before crawling over them to get away. 

‘I am not going back to the days where our babies were waking up to gunshots and not alarm clocks, where we normalize the violence in this city.’ Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, said during a press conference. 

‘So I am offering a personal reward to anyone who has information that would lead to apprehension and conviction of the individual who discharged those bullets at those babies. Because if he would do it to them, he would do it to your family members.’

Adams spoke alongside Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz. The cash will be added to the NYPD’s reward of $3500.

The incident is the latest in nearly 150 shootings across the city this month and – where shootings have skyrocketed since the pandemic gripped the country.   

According to the NYPD, the city reported 202 homicides this year through Friday — a 14% increase from 2020. The number of shootings jumped 57% so far in 2021, with 661 reported compared to 421 over the same period last year. 

The man in the sweater was shot multiple times but is still alive, according to the NYPD, and amazingly, the children weren’t shot or seriously injured. 

The gunman ran from the scene and took off with another suspect on a scooter. 

NYPD said it doesn’t have a motive for Thursday evening’s brazen attack on Sheridan Avenue in the Bronx.

The children aren’t related to the victim and were just walking in the area when the shooting started. 

The sun was still up when the shooting happened in the middle of a sidewalk lined with storefronts and potential witnesses. 

Anyone with information regarding the suspects whereabouts can call Crime Stoppers at 800-577-TIPS. 

The shooting marked a continuation of New York City’s descent into a lawless free-for-all where random attacks in the street happen nearly every day. 

Felony assaults are up eight percent for the first six months of 2021, compared to the same period last year, rapes are up by 10 percent and robberies – which includes muggings – have spiked by nearly 40 percent this month.  

The numbers are disturbing in themselves, but the violence has intensified and taken place in public places, like parks and subways, and in front of witnesses and surveillance cameras. 

On Monday, an unidentified man attacked two people with a rock after an argument became physical on a Brooklyn-bound subway.

One of the victims was rushed to the hospital with bruising to the head and knee, and the other victim was treated at the scene, according to police.

 On Thursday, a 15-year-old was stabbed to death by a 48-year-old man over a parking spot in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. 

The victim, Tory Lovick, was pronounced dead at the hospital, and the suspect’s identity will be released after he’s formally charged, the NYPD said. 

These are examples of individual acts of violence, but there are even larger crime-related issues plaguing the city.  

New York’s Washington Square Park has been plagued by a string of after-dark raves, which have often descended into chaos and violence leaving nearby residents furious.

On Friday night a woman was left bloodied and bruised after being trampled on by terrified crowds trying to flee a man armed with a large knife and a taser.

The man with the knife and taser is alleged to be Jason McDermott, 42, sources told DailyMail.com. McDermott has been arrested at least 10 times between 2010 and 2014, the sources said.

Now locals have told how the park changes after dark, from a calm, relaxing atmosphere during the day to chaos when the sun goes down.

As the raves at the park have escalated, there have been claims of prostitution and public sexual acts, historic pot smoking escalated to hard drugs, and claims of people carrying weapons like baseball bats. 

The New York Police Department’s Sixth Precinct called an emergency meeting Wednesday night amid growing complaints from merchants and residents about the non-stop partying. 

The meeting was met with dozens of protestors, who flocked by to park by nightfall. Although Wednesday night and Thursday were calmer than previous days, the NYPD said on Friday that they’ll be on high alert this weekend. 

Another major issue the residential and high-tourist area of Midtown Manhattan around around Times Square and Hell’s Kitchen, where thousands of homeless people were moved to hotels during the pandemic. 

Eight Avenue between Penn Station and The Port Authority Bus Terminal has become a drug corridor and a crime hot spot. 

The police precinct that includes Times Square and many of the hotels where the homeless have been living saw a 183 percent spike in felony assaults and 173 percent spike in robberies so far this year compared to 2020, according to NYPD data. 

Earlier this week, former NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton warned American cities, including New York City, are in for a ‘very, long dangerous summer’ as murder rates have skyrocketed 

And there aren’t any short- or long-term answers, Bratton told CNBC’s Shepard Smith on Monday. 

‘Unlike the last crime epidemic that took decades to build up to the early ’90s, this one has occurred, literally, overnight,’ Bratton said. 

‘It’s like the virus, it’s literally, out of nowhere, and so solutions are not immediately apparent.’ 

Bratton, who earned the nickname ‘supercop’ for helping clean up the streets of New York City and Los Angeles, issued his warning on Monday as NYPD data showed shootings and murders in the Big Apple have increased by almost 70 percent and 12 percent, respectively. 

In May, Governor Andrew Cuomo called the surge in violent crime a ‘major problem’ and said unless the NYPD gets a handle on it soon, the city would become undesirable.    

‘New Yorkers don’t feel safe and they don’t feel safe because the crime rate is up. It’s not that they are being neurotic or overly sensitive – they are right.’ he said. 

Moment a gunman points and SHOOTS at another man just ONE BLOCK from NYPD headquarters as crime spree comes right to cops’ door

Surveillance footage captured a brazen, daylight shooting just one block away from NYPD headquarters as crime in New York City continues to rise sharply.

The NYPD is searching for a gunman caught on tape shooting at another man on Friday afternoon in the Manhattan neighborhood of Two Bridges. 

The bullet missed the intended target and instead hit a 46-year-old man who was sitting on nearby steps at the Alfred E. Smith Houses, police said. 

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Police say the victim heard the shot and felt pain to his left arm and took himself to a nearby hospital to be treated for his gunshot wound.  

Footage of the shooting shows the gunman firing off a shot at a man at close range following a brief dispute.

The gunman appears to have missed and the intended target runs away with a small dog following behind him. 

The gunman, dressed in a black sweatshirt, black pants and white sneakers, is seen running in the opposite direction. 

The shooting not only took place in broad daylight but also a block away from NYPD police headquarters at  One Police Plaza.