For the first time in 25 years, New York City went without a reported shooting, according to CNN .
From Friday, October 12 to Sunday, October 14 not a single person was shot in any of the Big Apple’s five boroughs, the first time since 1993.
Mayor Bill de Blasio was thrilled about the unprecedented lack of shots fired, touting the achievement while speaking at a graduation ceremony for NYPD officers.
“A city of 8.6 million people — not a single shooting for three days,” he said. “Let’s thank the NYPD for what they’ve achieved.”
The weekend of peace comes in the wake of what NYPD police chief Lori Pollock called “another record-setting year” in the city, with fewer than 97,000 crimes committed.
“The city has now seen decreases in shootings in eight consecutive quarters,” Pollock said. “We had a historically low number of shootings in September.”
Pollock attributed the decline in crime to the push by federal prosecutors to punish domestic violence offenders for weapon possession.
The changes in the law included adding a list of serious misdemeanors.
Earlier this year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed legislation that would require those convicted of domestic violence to turn over any and all firearms they had. In addition, the new law prevents someone with a warrant or those accused of certain crimes from renewing their existing firearms license.
“New York is once again leading the way to prevent gun violence, and with this common sense reform, break the inextricable link between gun violence and domestic violence,” Cuomo said. “This legislation builds on our gun laws — already the strongest in the nation — to make New York safer and stronger.”
For the first time in 25 years, New York City made it through a weekend without anyone getting shot https://t.co/52RMUFWS35
— WFMZ-TV 69News (@69News) October 16, 2018
Cuomo told CNN , quoting from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report , “Half of the women who are murdered in this country are murdered by an intimate partner.”
According to government officials, firearms were used in 35 domestic killings in the state of New York in 2016.
Cuomo made it clear that the tighter restrictions on firearms were an effort to prevent bad people from getting their hands on firearms.
“Legitimate gun owners can still own a gun,” Cuomo reassured viewers.
De Blasio said at the graduation he felt the drop in crime was due to better police training and a focus on “neighborhood policing.”
Crime as a whole has fallen in the city, with 2017 seeing historic lows on homicide.
Unfortunately, the city’s streak ended at three days after a shooting was reported at about 1 p.m. in the Bronx.
