20 THE QUEENS COURIER • NOVEMBER 14, 2019 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
Murder rate rises as gang violence increases citywide: NYPD
BY TODD MAISEL
Despite a two percent drop in overall
crime citywide, New York City has already
seen 267 murders this year — and is on
track to reach more than 300 in 2019.
Police officials, led by outgoing
Commissioner James O’Neill, and
Mayor Bill de Blasio presented the numbers
during the latest Compstat report in
Brooklyn last week.
Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea, who
will take over for O’Neill at the end of
the month, found himself in the hot seat
because his offi ce is investigating several
major homicides, including the fatal
shooting of 14-year-old Aamir Griffi n on
a basketball court in October.
Shea pointed out that of the 29 murders
this past month, eight were part of two
separate incidents, including four found
dead at a gambling hall on Utica Avenue
on Oct. 12 and the other four in gang
related violence in the Bronx. He attributed
the increase in
homicides to rising
gang and narcotics
violence.
Shootings were
also up 4.7 percent,
from 597 during
the same period in
2018 to 625 shootings
this year. Of
those shootings,
there was a 13.1 percent
spike in crime
in NYCHA housing.
Most notable was the
shooting at the Old
Timers Day event in
Brownsville in which
12 people were shot
and one was killed.
“It’s a small percentage of the population
that is responsible for these crimes,”
Shea said. “Th e uptick is in shootings is
related to narcotics and gang related violence
and we are addressing it.”
Several shootings, including one in
which a teen girl was shot in the shoulder,
“seem to all be related to gang disputes
and it is the same individuals involved,”
according to Shea.
He indicated that arrests for homicides
were also up and they were making progress
in their investigations, though the
Griffi n murder is said to be diffi cult as the
video evidence is “murky at best.”
“Th ere are only a few people who are
committing most of these shootings and
they are the most violent,” Shea conceded.
Chief of Crime Control Strategies Lori
Pollack, however, said they are optimistic
that they can keep homicides under
300 for the year, however. Th ere were 259
reported murders in all of 2018.
De Blasio said he believes that the city
is “substantially safer and stronger” and
there are some people who have “unfairly
portrayed the city diff erently.”
Only two weeks ago, Governor Andrew
Cuomo claimed that subway crime had
“dramatically increased,” a charge which
O’Neill refuted. President Donald Trump
also has bashed New York City as “crime
ridden.”
In addition to the increase in murders,
offi cials noted that car theft s have also
increased. Chief Shea said the increase
can be attributed to people “leaving their
keys in the ignition and running, or having
the fob to close to the car for thieves
to take advantage.”
Th is past month, a car was snatched
in Canarsie with a 6-year-old boy still
strapped in his car seat. Th e car was later
recovered off Linden Boulevard, having
been abandoned by the thief and the boy
was unharmed.
“In the 1980s and ’90s, you would never
leave your car unattended while running,
especially not with a child in the car,” de
Blasio said.
O’Neill, who will be leaving to join Visa
as a senior vice president in the fraud division,
said one of the answers to crime is
having more community centers where
the youth can be safe.
“Th ere needs to be more positive places
to go for youth, places to exercise, do
homework in a safe place,” O’Neill said.
“Not to have nothing to do and then do
the things that get them in trouble. Th is
center belongs to you and you can depend
on it.”
200 school districts across the state
report not employing a teacher of color
BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELLDOMENECH
adomenech@qns.com
@AODNewz
The New York State Education
Department last week released a draft
report stating that 200 school districts
across the state do not employ a single
teacher of color.
Th e draft , which was presented during
a Board of Regents meeting earlier
this week, says that there has been an
increase in teacher diversity between
2011 and 2017, with the number of
teachers of color in the state having
increased by 1,400. But during that same
time frame, the number of teachers of
color have declined in several parts of
the state — including in Manhattan
and Brooklyn. In the city’s other three
boroughs numbers are up, the report
reveals.
“Th is crucial information about teacher
diversity is a wake-up siren for leaders
in Albany and City Hall,” said Paula
White, executive director of Educators
for Excellence New York.
In most regions of the state, people
of color only made up 5 percent of
teachers, despite young people of color
increasingly becoming the majority in
classrooms, the report says.
“Our schools, including our teachers,
should refl ect the diversity of the city,
and we are proud to be leading the state
in teacher diversity,” said a DOE spokesperson
in response to the report. New
York City has the highest number of
teachers of color in the state at 42 percent.
“We’ve invested in NYC Men Teach
and our teacher pathway programs for
paraprofessionals, and we’ll continue to
focus on increasing the diversity of our
teachers,” they said.
Th e turnover rate for teachers of color
is also higher than that of their white
counterparts — the draft report reveals
that 22 percent of black teachers, 19 percent
of Latino teachers, 18 percent of
Asian teachers and 17 percent of Native
American teachers in the 2017-2018
File photo
school year did not return to the classroom
the next year, while only 13 percent
of white teachers did not return
to the classroom during that same time
frame. In order to gather those percentages,
the NYSED only used data from
about 50 percent of districts.
Despite those numbers, the draft
shows that there is an uptick in people of
color entering educator preparation programs.
Although most students are still
mostly white, the number of students of
color has increased from 25 percent in
the 2010-11 school year to 39 percent in
2016-17 school year.
According to NYSED, the Educator
Diversity report will be fi nalized soon.
Photos by Todd Maisel
Chief of Detectives Dermott Shea, soon to be commissioner, talks about
the rise in murders. With him in the row are (left to right) Mayor Bill
de Blasio, Commissioner James O’Neill and to his left is Chief of Crime
Control Strategies Lori Pollack.
Mayor Bill de Blasio enters the community center with Commissioner James O’Neill.
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