Brooklyn elected officials and local cure violence groups declared efforts to prevent gun violence over Labor Day weekend a success, despite the shooting of a 6-year-old boy, amny reports.
Cure violence groups and elected officials said their strategy of occupying hotspot corners with police helped maintain safety, but said they needed more resources to replicate the success every weekend.
"We had a productive weekend in that coproduction of safety," Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said at a press conference outside Brooklyn Museum. "What you saw in the areas where folks were walking around, there was much less gun violence than in most summer weekends, much less a holiday weekend."
But even with increased safety measures and the cancellation of large-scale J'Ouvert celebrations, shootings did occur in Central Brooklyn. At one site in Crown Heights, a mass shooting left five people injured, including a 6-year-old boy.
The shooting took place between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m., when cure violence workers weren't working due to a lack of funding. Williams said the police presence in the area was heavy at the time of the shooting, and the incident was evidence more funding was needed for organizations that root out gun violence before it takes place.
"Police by themselves cannot solve this problem," he said. "We understand the need for law enforcement for acute situations and helping, but that cannot be where all the funding and focus goes."
For next the financial year, leaders of local cure violence groups are pushing for an additional $200 million in funding to provide more boots on the ground in hotspot areas and to help identify conflicts before they occur.
