A surge in violence among teenagers has left two people dead and six injured in just two days

metro

From Larry Celona, Joe Marino And Olivia Land

It’s been a bloody week for New York teenagers – at least two people were killed and six others injured in a series of shootings and stabbings across the five boroughs.

The frightening outbreak of violence against the city’s youth lasted two days and resulted in a 16-year-old basketball lover being shot dead on a street in SoHo and a 17-year-old girl being fatally stabbed in the neck outside a subway station in Queens.

“We must do everything in our power to combat violence in this city, particularly among our young people,” said Pastor Edward Hinds, who worked with Mahki Brown, the teenager who died Tuesday in an outdoor plaza in the Spring Street near Varick Street was shot this afternoon.

Brown, who attended nearby Broome Street Academy Charter High School, just blocks from his home in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, played on a basketball team with the 67th Precinct Clergy Council, a nonviolent group also known as “The GodSquad.” .

“Mahki was a very energetic, very lively young man,” Hinds told The Post on Friday.

“It is a tragedy that we now have to prepare for his memorial service.”

The teenager – described by friends and family as caring and respectful – may have been caught in a fight between two groups of teenagers when a gunman on a CitiBike shot at him, law enforcement sources said.

He was one of two teenagers shot to death on Tuesday. The other, a 17-year-old boy who was shot in the back on the grounds of an Upper West Side public housing complex about 11:20 p.m., survived.

Also on Tuesday, three 15-year-old boys were injured and survived in two separate incidents in the Bronx and Brooklyn.

That bloodshed followed the injury of two 15-year-old boys when they were stabbed outside a McDonald’s in the Bronx on Wednesday – and then the tragic knife attack on 17-year-old Sara Rivera in Sunnyside around 9:35 p.m

“There’s always talk about there being too many guns on the streets, and there are – but it seems like every teenager has a knife,” a Brooklyn detective said of a trend in knife crime among teenagers.

“You think you’re going to get hit and suddenly you’re bleeding because someone stabbed you in the chest or back.”

Police officials also blamed the violence on the state’s lax criminal justice laws, while noting that firearm arrests among the city’s youth have increased recently.

“This is a direct result of ‘Raise the Age’ laws,” a Manhattan supervisor said, referring to a law signed by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo that raised the age of adult prosecution for a teenager from 16 to 18 years – and 17-year threshold.

The law, which came into force in 2019, makes it likely that 16- and 17-year-old suspects will be sent to family court, where they will face less serious consequences.

“There are no consequences for the crimes. “The increase in crime is the opposite effect of what the law was intended to do,” the watchdog said of the slap-on-the-wrist system, adding it creates “super criminals.”

Mike Lipetri, the NYPD’s chief of crime-fighting strategies, agreed, telling the Post on Friday: “We have to have consequences” for serious crimes.

Last year, Lipetri said, 11% of people arrested with firearms were minors, “a 120% increase compared to 2018, when there were 209 under 18.”

He said NYPD data shows that about a quarter of juveniles arrested with guns become perpetrators or victims of a shooting within two years.

“Eleven percent of all shooting victims in New York City last year were under 18 years old. This is 77 percent more than in 2018,” he added.

About 96 people under the age of 18 were arrested in shootings in 2023, Lipetri said, adding that the number was “up 92% compared to 2018.”

The frightening statistics played out in real time in the 36 hours after Brown’s death. As of Friday, no suspects in his murder had been publicly identified.

No suspect has been named in the shooting of the 17-year-old boy at NYCHA’s Amsterdam Houses, which broke out during an argument over a game of dice, police said.

Police say officers have not announced any arrests in connection with Tuesday’s assaults, including the 15-year-old boy who was stabbed in the back of the head during an altercation with other teenagers on an MTA bus in the Bronx. Police said the attackers fled the scene.

Two other teenagers of the same age were also injured at a South Williamsburg intersection later in the day, and that case is also ongoing, according to police.

Police are also still searching for the attacker who slashed a 15-year-old boy’s chest and hand outside the McDonald’s in Charlotte Gardens shortly before 4 p.m. on Wednesday. The two boys are students at Bronx Vision Academy.

A 15-year-old girl has been charged with the murder of Ramirez – who was just months away from his 18th birthday.

17-year-old Sara Ramirez had apparently gotten into an argument with a 15-year-old friend when she was stabbed in the neck outside a subway station in Queens on Wednesday evening.

The high school student was pronounced dead at the hospital.

“This is what happens when you change the laws and there are no consequences,” another Brooklyn detective chimed in.

“Lawmakers believe they are protecting youth — did they protect (Ramirez)?”

Hinds, the Brooklyn pastor who knew the tragic basketball player Brown, agreed.

“There is a need for comprehensive resources,” he said. “An all-hands-on-deck approach.”