The trend seems to be fewer people pierced by projectiles but more hit by knives.
Although Big Apple authorities have highlighted that fewer shootings and murders involving firearms were recorded last summer, there is a “sharp” and very dangerous trend: Fatal stabbings and cuts with penetrating sharp objects increased this year by 11%.
In the last two weeks alone, three people have been stabbed at random in situations without any connection between them, by perpetrators who, according to initial hypotheses, suffer from mental disorders. In many of these types of crime scenes there is no evidence of attempted assault or personal conflicts.
So far in 2024, more than 65 people have died from knives, compared to 54 in 2023.
This year, on average, every week one New Yorker has lost their life as a result of fatal wounds from knives, a type of weapon that is very easily accessible and, unlike pistols and rifles, is very difficult to control.
“They just want to kill”
An NYPD officer from a police station in the Bronx told El Diario this Friday that they are making daily arrests of “repeat offenders who have proven to be dangerous” who carry knives and razors, but who enter the “revolving door” of the police system. justice.
“We do our job. The flexibility of certain criminal laws is the issue that New York must address,” the official commented anonymously.
It should be remembered that on May 30, 2019, the ban on considering folding knives as “dangerous weapons” in the state of New York was repealed. As a result, the mere possession of these objects is no longer a crime under the Penal Law.
This category of objects refers to folding leaves that open with the push of a button and a movement of the wrist. These products had been completely banned in New York in the 1950s after a series of knife crimes.
The criticism from organizations like the Legal Aid Society that pushed for the passage of this legislation five years ago is that police commonly confused knives with “gravity blades,” which led to unnecessary arrests.
However, mere possession of switchblades, ballistic pilum knives, or brass knuckle knives remains a misdemeanor. Specifically, no dangerous instruments, or any other item intended to be used as a weapon, may be transported anywhere on the New York City public transportation system.
“Simply someone who is detected entering the transportation system with any object that could cause harm is detained. New Yorkers can have confidence that thousands of crimes are prevented every minute by us police officers. Hundreds of people are accurately detained, profiled by us as potentially dangerous, but unfortunately the justice system puts them on the streets, within hours,” commented another uniformed officer.
These types of attacks, unprovoked or simply due to a small friction, have become frequent in scenarios at Subway stations, commercial establishments, particularly warehouses, and ATM areas.
“A single small knife, pointed in the right place, can cause death in seconds. And simply in a city with so many mental health problems, what you see on the news is that they don’t want to assault you, it’s that suddenly, someone deranged felt like killing,” says Puerto Rican Camila Santiago, a resident. retired from The Bronx, precisely the county where stabbings are most common.
No more, this Thursday it made the headlines again as a “bloodbath” occurred inside a warehouse in Longwood in the Bronx, when a 29-year-old girl, after an apparent personal dispute, ended up being killed by several stab wounds. by another woman, who was captured by security cameras, when she entered the store.
Earlier this week, in the early hours of Tuesday, a 28-year-old passenger was stabbed at the 50th St station in Manhattan.
According to local media, the young woman was standing on the platform when a man began to look at her and she complained to him. The suspect approached and cut her on the torso with an unknown instrument. The victim is in stable condition. The aggressor ran away.
On September 28, a man was standing outside a Mediterranean restaurant on Seventh Ave in Park Slope in Brooklyn, late at night, when a stranger approached him, stabbed him in the chest and ran away, according to the report. part of the Uniformed.
The victim, who is in stable condition, stated that he did not recognize or have any problems with the attacker. Likewise, NYPD stated that there was no type of interaction between the two individuals before the attack.
Likewise, on September 24, a similar situation was reported at Subway. A 45-year-old man was attacked with a penetrating sharp object inside a subway line 4 car. The injured man was taken off the train at the 138th Street station in Mott Haven and taken to Lincoln Medical Center in stable condition. The suspect in the crime has not been arrested.
A sequence of similar fatalities has occurred in train stations, in some cases, due to simple arguments or injuries inflicted by homeless people, with psychiatric symptoms wandering around the carriages.
The underlying problem
Last January, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced that Jermain Rigueur was indicted for attempted murder and assault following a two-day stabbing spree in Springfield Gardens and Jamaica, Queens. Four unrelated people for no apparent reason were attacked at random, including three in a single hour.
From then on, so far this year, knives have been the fatal protagonists of many violent situations, which have left families in mourning and left great scars on people who simply move calmly through urban spaces.
This attack scheme generates reactions. Dominican Rafael Paredes, a resident of The Bronx, comments that fortunately, personally, he has never been up close to this type of violent actions, but that the information that emerges makes him move very carefully through the streets.
“Finally, anyone can be a victim of this type of incident in a city that is overwhelmed by so many people who have completely lost their minds due to so much drug use. There are many people who are out of their minds. That is the underlying problem. And no one knows how this is resolved,” commented the retiree.
NYPD: Crimes decrease
- Serious crimes have decreased 2.3% so far this year compared to the first eight months of last year according to the NYPD.
- 36 fewer people have been murdered in New York City compared to last year (242 vs. 278), a decrease of 12.9%
- 15 murders occurred in August 2024, which, according to municipal authorities, represents the lowest number of murders that occurred during any August in more than three decades.
- Reports of stabbings have grown 11% this year. 2,668 have been reported versus 2,411 in 2023.