Deadly night in New York City as gun violence surge continues

NEW YORK - A continued surge of violence left one person dead and many others injured across New York City at the start of the long holiday weekend.

In one incident in Jackson Heights, Queens two people were stabbed around 2:20 a.m.  Yaqueline Collado, 45, was stabbed multiple times across her body and died at Elmhurst Hospital.  A 41-year-old man was also found with stab wounds to his stomach and was in critical condition at the hospital.  He was in police custody.

Late Thursday night in Manhattan, a group of people was handing out at E. 110th St. and FDR Drive in East Harlem when someone opened fire.  Three people were hit.  They were all hospitalized in stable condition.  No arrests have been made.

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Also late Thursday night a man was shot in the backside on Lincoln Place in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.  He was taken to Kings County Hospital in stable condition.  No arrests have been made in that case.

In another shooting in Brooklyn, two men were shot on Madison St. in Bedford-Stuyvesant.  One victim was shot in the mouth and the other in the torso.  The conditions of the victims were unknown and there were no arrests.

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And in Astoria, Queens, a man was shot in the leg in the area of 35th Ave. and 35th St. at about 3 a.m.  He was taken to a hospital in stable condition.  The NYPD had not made an arrest in that case.

Since the beginning of the year through Saturday, there were 530 shootings compared to 350 shootings for the same time period last year. In over nine days there were 83 shootings citywide.  There have not been this many shooting incidents on New York City streets since 1996, according to the NYPD.

Concerns are rising about safety across the city after the City Council passed a budget earlier this week cutting $1 billion of funding to the police department. 

Protesters remain camped outside City Hall after insisting that the city make the giant cut. The protests come amid a nationwide campaign to “defund” police — a movement animated by outrage over the deaths of George Floyd and other Black Americans at the hands of police.