More than 50 people were shot — at least seven of them fatally — during a bloody outbreak of gun violence in the Big Apple over the Fourth of July weekend.
The victims cut across a wide spectrum of New Yorkers — from a pair of former college rugby players wounded while sitting in a cab in Midtown to a beloved 62-year-old Bronx neighborhood “grandfather” who was gunned down by stray bullets.
In all, 51 people were shot in 36 separate incidents since Friday, a huge jump from the 32 people shot in 27 shootings over the holiday weekend last year, NYPD statistics show.
Twenty-one of this year’s holiday weekend victims were shot on Monday’s 246th birthday of American independence, including John Edwards, who was known in his Belmont neighborhood as the “Grandfather of the Block.” By comparison, there were 13 people shot on July 4, 2021.
“I knew him since I was 10,” Rachel Sanchez said of Edwards — who died in a friend’s arms after being mortally wounded by a stray bullet in Belmont around 10:30 p.m. on Monday.
“We are his family,” said Sanchez, 30, who grew up in the neighborhood and returned to pay her respects to Edwards, who was also known to locals as the “godfather” of the area, she said.
Neighbors said Edwards had tired of the rising crime in the Big Apple and had finally decided it was time to leave his beloved neighborhood — which is now devastated.
“He will be missed,” Sanchez said Tuesday.
One of the weekend’s earliest flashes of gun violence came in broad daylight Friday afternoon, when a 17-year-old boy was killed in Hamilton Heights after a gunman fired a barrage of bullets on the busy street.
That terrifying incident — which sent bystanders running for cover — was later followed by the death of a 37-year-old man who was shot in the face and chest during a fight inside a bodega in East New York, Brooklyn.
In the Bronx, a 15-year-old boy was left splattered in blood — down to his sneakers — after he was shot in the right arm in the early hours of Saturday on Hughes Avenue and East 180th Street in East Tremont.
He was taken to Jacobi Hospital and was expected to recover.
The bloodshed continued Saturday afternoon, when a 19-year-old man was ambushed and shot off of a scooter in The Bronx.
Melvin Urena was shot multiple times and killed, police said.
Peggy Baerga, whose 24-year-old son, Justin, was fatally shot as he celebrated his birthday at an auto body shop in Queens Saturday night called on “justice” to be served.
“No one has the right to take another person’s life,” the heartbroken woman said. “I don’t think they think about that person’s family.”
Her son Justin Baerga was among four people shot inside 129-09 89 Avenue shortly after 9:30 p.m. — but the only one among them to die from his wounds.
“Justice needs to be served. It’s a cowardly act,” Peggy Baerga said. “I will never be the same again. They took my heart.”
Elsewhere in the five boroughs, an NYPD auxiliary sergeant was struck in the leg and robbed of his 2017 Kawasaki motorcycle early Saturday morning in the Bronx, while a city corrections officer was shot in Queens during a party at a motorcycle club.
Nine people were shot Sunday, compared to five on the same date last year. Saturday’s victims of gunfire totaled 16, double the number shot that day in 2021. And six people were shot Friday, the same number as last year.
On Monday evening, the boyfriend of an NYPD civilian employee was sitting in a car outside a chic Soho boutique when he was shot and wounded in a drive-by shooting.
Police said the 27-year-old victim was sitting in a gray Honda sedan outside Dior New York Soo on Greene Street when a BMW with New Jersey plates pulled up and opened fire, hitting him in the underarm.
Alexander Franklyn of Staten Island, whose 24-year-old son was one of the ex-rugby players wounded in the Manhattan cab shooting, bemoaned the spike in gunplay.
“It’s getting out of hand,” Franklyn said. “You don’t seem to be safe anywhere.”
In a press conference in Queens Tuesday, Mayor Adams said the city has made some headway in reducing crime in the five boroughs — but has more to do.
“What crime is doing is it is overshadowing all that we’re doing,” Adams said. “We have some real W’s, and crime is the No. 1 issue on New Yorkers’ minds right now.
“Regardless of all the good stuff we’re doing, until we get crime under control, New Yorkers are going to feel we are not making progress, which we are,” he said.
He said the city uptick in shootings is not unique to the five boroughs.
“So, this national problem has played out on our streets,” Adams said. “We are making the right adjustments. We’re moving in the right direction and we’re going to win this battle.”
The weekend surge in gunplay comes on the heels of a US Supreme Court ruling that threw out a 100-year-old New York State law that required stringent guidelines to obtain a pistol permit in the state.
In response, state lawmakers passed new legislation that bars specific areas where concealed weapons may not be carried.
