A 27-year-old man was shot while sitting in his car outside of a Dior clothing store in Soho, Manhattan as violence erupted in New York City on the Fourth of July.
The shooter pulled up next to the victim at approximately 5pm in a white BMW with New Jersey license plates before firing at least three shots.
The man, who is the boyfriend of an NYPD employee, was rushed to a Mount Sinai Beth Israel hospital by his girlfriend after he was shot in the right underarm during the drive-by shooting.
The shooting comes as New York City suffered a violent fourth of July that saw at least three people dead and 24 wounded on Monday. No arrests have been made in connection with the shootings.
From Friday to Sunday, there were 24 shootings with 31 victims. Last year, there were 15 incidents with 19 victims during the same time period.
Shootings in NYC over Fourth of July weekend rose 60% this year, according to the NYPD. At least three people were killed on July 4 alone
Citywide, major crimes in New York are up 38 percent so far this year compared to last year
Police say that shootings over the holiday weekend spiked 60% compared to last year.
The massive increase comes after Mayor Eric Adams promised to keep New Yorkers safe over the holiday weekend.
‘We are going to use every tool in our toolbox to provide New Yorkers a safe and enjoyable July 4th holiday weekend,’ Adams said.
Adams has made a considerable push to get illegal guns off of the streets of New York City, resulting in murders being down 13 percent from last year, and shooting victims have dropped 9 percent.
But major crimes in New York are up 38 percent this year compared to last year, with robbery up 39 percent, burglary rising 34 percent, and felony assault jumping 19 percent.
Last week, the execution-style murder of a mother pushing her baby in a stroller near an Upper East Side playground sent shockwaves around the city.
The 20-year-old victim was walking with her three-month-old baby when the hooded shooter approached her and ‘fired a single shot into her head from a very close range,’ NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell told reporters.
Adams blamed the shooting on the ‘over-proliferation of guns’ and said that criminals have ‘no fear in using these guns on innocent New Yorkers.’
‘The over-saturation of guns, and dangerous people that repeatedly leave our criminal justice system to continue actions like this, it is what’s making the New York City Police Department and other law enforcement agencies…difficult to fight this issue,’ he added.
The area where the shooting occurred is an affluent and normally quiet neighborhood where violent street crime is less common than in many other parts of New York.
Across the street from the murder scene is the Samuel Seabury Playground, which was filled with children who witnessed the horrific shooting.
‘It doesn’t matter if you are on the Upper East Side or East New York, Brooklyn,’ Adams said.
In late June, President Joe Biden signed into law a legislation that marks some of the biggest changes to federal gun law in decades.
‘Lives will be saved,’ Biden said during the signing ceremony in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.
‘From Columbine to Sandy Hook to Charleston, Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland, El Paso, Atlanta, Buffalo, Uvalde, and for the shootings that happen every day in the streets that are mass shootings, we don’t even hear about the number of people killed every day in the streets. Their message to us was to just do something,’ the president said.
According to the NYPD, the city’s current crime rate is approximately 13.3 major crimes per 1,000 residents per year. The combined rate of violent crimes – rapes, murders and felony assaults– adds up to 2.8 per 1,000 residents per year.
Anyone with information about the shooting is urged to contact NYPD detectives at 1-800-577-TIPS.