How Many People Were Shot in Bay Ridge This Year?

Gun Violence in Bay Ridge
Screenshot via Slate

While news of mass shootings occupy the nation, sparking renewed debates about gun control, it’s worth wondering, how many of my neighbors died from gun-related violence? The Gun Violence Archive and Slate have posted their data as a searchable map, and according to them, one person died from a gunshot in Bay Ridge in 2015—and it was a suicide, in April, when Sgt. Jim Fitzpatrick shot himself off-duty, at his home on Narrows Avenue, near 71st Street. (I was at a friend’s house up the block that afternoon, and we could see and hear from his back patio the helicopters buzzing anxiously overheard for many hours.)

So while those who never leave Bay Ridge might not face a great threat of gun violence, it still plagues many parts of the borough, particularly the central and eastern regions, as well as other parts of the city. Just over the border in Dyker Heights, in March, one nine-year-old was accidentally playing with a parent’s gun when he shot a 14-year-old. “Too often these tragedies are reported as inevitable ‘accidents,'” local antigun activist Kristen Pettit told us earlier this year—”but when someone dies or is injured because a gun is left unsecured in a home, it’s not a blameless accident.”

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