Biden meets with NYDP over gun violence.
The U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday arrived in New York to tour the New York Police Department (NYPD) headquarters and meet with city and state leaders to discuss ways to combat increasing gun violence.
The visit comes as gun violence has spiked by more than 24 per cent in 2022 compared to the same period in 2021, and amid a series of high-profile shootings and violent crimes.
“And every day in this country, 316 people are shot, 106 are killed.
“And six NYPD officers have been victims of gun violence so far, just this year — the same in the town north of me, Philadelphia; and my much smaller town of Wilmington, Delaware; and Washington, D.C.
“Sixty-four children injured by gun violence so far this year, twenty-six killed. It’s enough. Enough is enough,’’ Biden said in his speech with the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force.
“Because we know we can do things about this but for the resistance we’re getting from some sectors of the government and the Congress and the state legislatures and the organisational structures out there,’’ he added.
The visit coincides with a Justice Department plan to crack down on illegal guns and violent crimes and offer additional support to local law enforcement agencies.
On Wednesday, slain NYPD Officer Wilbert Mora, was fare welled at a service at St Patrick’s Cathedral that saw thousands of officers pack Fifth Avenue in the heart of Manhattan in tribute.
Mora and partner Jason Rivera were fatally wounded while attending a domestic violence callout in Harlem on Jan. 21.
Authorities say 47-year-old Lashawn McNeil ambushed both officers in the hallway of his mother’s apartment, and opened fire with a 45-caliber pistol hitting both officers in the head.
Rivera died later that night and Mora was pronounced dead in hospital four days later.
Biden personally called New York City Mayor, Eric Adams, to offer his condolences after the deadly shooting.
Biden will meet with Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul at NYPD headquarters in Lower Manhattan.
They will then tour a public school in Queens to discuss community violence intervention programmes with local leaders.
Adams made reducing violent crimes his key campaign pledge and plans to reinstate a controversial plain clothes police unit that’s been accused of racial profiling, shootings of unarmed black men, and other brutal tactics.