New Yorkers mark Gun Violence Awareness Day — amid spike in gun violence

Gun control activists in New York City held their first annual Gun Violence Awareness Day on Tuesday, as city police announced an alarming spike in citywide shootings.

The event, which was inspired by community mobilization efforts following the 2013 shooting death of Chicago high school student Hadiya Pendleton, was held on what would have been her 18th birthday.

NYC activists backed by gun control nonprofit organization Everytown took to social media, posting photos of people wearing orange clothes and urging others to sign a pledge to help end gun violence in their communities.

Activists wore orange as a “way to visibly honor the 88 Americans lives cut short by gun violence every day” and as a “symbol for the value of human life everywhere,” Everytown said on its website, weareorange.com.

Nevertheless, new gun crime figures released by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) show criminals hold little regard for the activists’ message.

In the first five months of 2015 there were 135 killings in the city, The New York Times reported, and 98 of those deaths involved a gun. During the same five-month period in both 2013 and 2014, there were 69 shooting deaths each year, the Times added.

The total of 439 shooting incidents so far this year represents a 20 percent rise over 2013, the Times reported. Those 439 incidents produced 510 victims. A little more than a fifth of them didn't survive. 

Gun Violence Awareness Day comes against the backdrop of the harsh political realities of keeping guns off the street, with the NYPD struggling to find a balance between respecting residents’ civil rights and ensuring gun violence doesn’t take more lives.

Stop-and-frisk, a controversial police practice used mainly to attempt to rid NYC of illegal guns, was curtailed in 2013 following a federal lawsuit that alleged the tactic — which involves detaining and searching city residents for little reason — was unconstitutional, unfair and often biased by racial prejudice.

However, with gun crimes rising, some officers and city residents are beginning to question the decision to limit the practice.

“It’s never about intentionally violating civil rights,” said Joe Giacalone, a criminal law professor at City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Giacalone, who served as an officer with the NYPD for 20 years, sees a correlation between the rise in crime and police loosening their grip on the city.

Practices like stop-and-frisk struck fear into the hearts of criminals who carry guns, Giacalone said, and they have become more brazen as the practice has waned.

But the NYPD can only do so much, said Allison Anderman, a lawyer with gun-control group Smart Gun Laws.

The lack of tough regulations in some states let weapons flow through an “iron pipeline” to the hands of criminals in places where laws are strict, she explained. Background checks, meant to keep weapons out of the hands of felons, drug addicts, domestic abusers and the mentally ill, are key to stopping the stream, she added.

“Background checks have to be universal across the country for them to really be effective for them to stop crime,” Anderman said. The state doesn’t have to be near, she added, noting that a man used a gun from Georgia to kill NYPD Officer Brian Moore in May.

But with federal, universal background check legislation having died years ago in Washington, D.C., the NYPD may have little choice but to revert to controversial tactics like stop-and-frisk.

Giacalone also blames officers’ fear of detaining and searching a person and then facing career-ending consequences — a lawsuit or dismissal from the force — if the stop goes badly. The officers have their families’ futures to consider, he said. Those fears have become greater amid rising scrutiny and criticism of police in the wake of controversial killings of civilians by officers. 

“Police understand stop-and-frisk is a good tool to bring violence down,” Giacalone said. “But are the police willing to do it again?"