NYC shootings on rise after latest gunfire at Brooklyn seafood restaurant
BROWNSVILLE, Brooklyn (WABC) -- Gun violence continues to be on the rise in New York City.
Shopkeepers say it was frightening as bullets shattered the storefront of a seafood restaurant in Brooklyn that left two customers wounded.
The shooting happened just before 5:30 p.m. Monday near Pitkin Seafood on Pitkin Avenue in Brownsville.
Bullets fired in broad daylight-from clear across the street. Boris Isliov owns a shoe store and watched it happen.
"I could see it from here, he was behind my car shooting," Isliov said.
Another shopkeeper says he heard five shots.
Authorities say the suspect escaped around the corner, while the two victims survived their injuries. However, the motive for the shooting was not clear.
It was only the latest in a wave of shootings that's sweeping the city.
On Friday night, a shootout between rival gang members in Queens left a 37-year-old woman dead. She was struck in the head by the bullet and killed from simply walking to the store to buy milk for her children.
NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea testified at a city council hearing on police reforms.
"Numbers are cold calculations, but each number represents a victim," Shea said. "And victims have names. We remember when the gun violence began to climb last summer. Equally startling is that 97 percent of our shooting victims are people of color - which is why we heard communities of color asking for more police and more visibility."
On March 15 last year, there were three shootings with three victims. On Monday, there were four shootings with five victims.
By this time last year, there were 145 shootings, but as of Monday, there have been 206 so far this year -- a startling increase of 42%.
Shopkeepers say their surveillance cameras are routinely vandalized, painted over with spray-paint or smashed to pieces.
No arrests have been made in the most recent case nor the Queens case.
Anybody with information is urged to call the NYPD.
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