Brooklyn Leads the Way in Reducing Violent Crime, said DA Eric Gonzalez

By Yehudit Garmaise

Brooklyn efforts to fight and prosecute crime have not only decreased shootings by 20% since last year, but the borough has led the city in reversing the tide of gun violence, said District Attorney Eric Gonzales today at an event to honor Martin Luther King Jr. at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

“While shootings have increased citywide, victimization in Brooklyn has decreased,” said Gonzalez, who added that his “defining struggle, as Brooklyn’s district attorney, is to keep our communities safe: especially from the scourge of gun violence.

“We have removed from the community: gang members who were directly responsible for shootings and killings on our streets.

“Law enforcement has a very important role to play in confronting violence, and we have done that here in Brooklyn.”

Arrests and prosecutions, however, are not the only solutions as ways to end gun violence, explained Gonzalez, who pointed out that “tough-on-crime policies led directly to mass incarceration and to black and brown families being devastated.”

“The safest communities in America are not the ones that have the highest incarceration rates,” emphasized Gonzalez. “The safest neighborhoods have the resources necessary to meet people’s needs, such as: good jobs, safe housing, excellent schools, accessible health care, and inviting, open public spaces.

In fact, last weeks, after an 18-year-old girl was senselessly killed while working in a fast-food restaurant in East Harlem, many of the community members who spoke at a press conference blamed the community’s “lack of resources” for its high crime rates.

“The safest communities are also resourced to make sure at-risk, troubled youth get interventions before they commit crimes,” Gonzalez said.

When Mayor Eric Adams spoke, he also emphasized that crime need to be prevented, as much as it needs to be punished.

For instance, the flow of guns needs to be stopped from the southern part of our country into our Northern cities, the mayor said.

“There are no gun manufacturers in New York City, Chicago, and Detroit,” Mayor Adams said. “We have to stop the sources [of those guns.]

In terms of schools, Mayor Adams said, “We have to stop an educational system in which we spend $38 billion, and 65% of black and brown children reach proficiency in this city.

“We have to do dyslexia screenings, so we don’t have prisons with 30% of our inmates who are dyslexic and 55% with learning disabilities.

“We have to give opportunities.

“If we don’t educate, we will incarcerate, and we need to stop that incarceration that takes place at childbirth.”

“[Crime prevention and prosecution] is the model that we are building here in Brooklyn,” Gonzalez said. “We have opened and partnered with anti-violence workers and empowered community-based organizations to decide what safety and justice require in our neighborhoods.”