Just after midnight on Father’s Day, a barrage of gunfire erupted around 135th Street and Harlem River Drive, violently disrupting a beautiful stay at a popular summer picnic area.
Finally, Darius Lee, a featured 21-year-old basketball player at Houston Baptist University, dead. Eight others were injured.
Hours after Monday’s shooting, police tape marked the scene filled with trash. Numbered yellow cards dot the bridge leading to the East River Waterfront Esplanade, a pavilion next to the highway. It looks like the chaotic aftermath of any other summer barbecue in town: discarded red Solo cups, empty Modelo cans, an abandoned baseball cap. Two barbecues were left open, one with food still on the grill.
“It’s a bit arbitrary, if someone gets injured and dies, compared to someone just getting hurt. Those things are all down to chance, says Ron Avi Astor, a professor of social welfare at the University of California, Los Angeles who studies mass violence. “If we only look when more people are killed, we will miss the bigger picture.”
The Justice Department defines mass shootings as any incident in which four or more victims are murdered. Other organizations define them as any time four or more people are shot.
“There is no one right answer. Both of those definitions imply terrible things,” said Michael Anestis, executive director of the Center for the Study of Gun Violence in New Jersey at Rutgers University.
Random, public mass shootings like those in Buffalo or Uvalde, Texas, “represent about 1% or less of gun violence in the United States, but still absorb about 95% of the oxygen in the national conversation.” on gun violence,” Dr. Anestis said.
Low profile attacks cause a terrible amount of their own. Just this weekend: Around 3 a.m. Sunday, a gunman opened fire in the Ozone Park area of Queens, shooting three people and killing one; in Washington, D.C., a 15-year-old boy was shot dead and three others, including a police officer, was filmed at a music festival; in Chicago, 47 people were shot; and in Philadelphia, nine shootings left three dead and six injured.
In Los Angeles, a 17-year-old boy and a 23-year-old man were injured Saturday in a shooting behind a Target store in the Baldwin Hills area. And at the Fremont Street Experience, a pedestrian mall in downtown Las Vegas, a man was fatally shot and a bystander was injured Sunday when gunfire erupted after a The scuffle in the casino spilled over into the outside.
Vestavia Hills, an affluent suburb of Birmingham, Ala., was also shaken after a 70-year-old tourist to the Episcopal church fatally shot three people participating in a potluck game on the evening of June 16.
In mass shootings, the violence is often random, Dr. Anestis said. Offensive weapons are often used and purchased legally, and victims are often arbitrarily selected. But in incidents like Harlem, or other frequent occurrences in the city, violence is often the target, he said.
And, the weapons are often different: Police released a photo on Monday of a firearm recovered from Harlem River Drive — a handgun.
“It’s a bunch of different solutions,” said Dr Anestis, adding that programs like street-level violence disruptors, who work with victims in hospitals to calm the Revenge shootings and street feuds, have a lot of promise.
Even if the shooting rate decreased, their impact was reduced outsider. In May, a 11 year old girl was killed when she was caught in a wave of teen fighting in the Bronx. In March, one 12 year old boy was hit and killed as he sat in his car in Brooklyn, dining with his family. And, in April, a 61 years old was shot dead in a crossfire in the Bronx.
On Monday, New York police officials said that eight other people shot in the Harlem incident overnight were in stable condition.
Houston Baptist mourn Mr. Lee, who is about to graduate with his bachelor’s degree in December. He was recently named the university’s male student-athlete of the year. By Monday afternoon, a makeshift memorial had sprung up outside Mr. Lee’s Harlem childhood home. Green, orange, and white candles – the colors of the Houston Baptist – filled the sidewalk.
His coach, James Sears Bryant, said in a statement: “We are shocked and unable to understand this news.
Tea Kvetenadze and Simon Romero contribution report.
