Massive Apple officers crushed almost 3,600 unlawful weapons in a wood-chipper-like machine on Thursday – with the scraps for use to weld a memorial to victims of gun violence.
Some 3,575 semi-automatic weapons, revolvers seized off the town’s streets in now-closed felony instances had been loaded onto a conveyor belt and fed right into a chipper at an occasion in Westbury simply two days after an harmless grandmother was killed by stray gunfire in Harlem.
“Destroying these weapons are essential,” Hizzoner mentioned on the headquarters of proof destruction vendor Reworld. “Not solely is it substantive, ridding a gun off our road, however there’s a stage of symbolism that’s hooked up to it, of how we’re not going to ever give up to violence.
“These are weapons of destruction, weapons of ache, weapons of chaos that we’re eradicating off our streets,” he added. “And we all know that we have now to do extra, and we are going to do extra, and that is what retains me up at evening….whenever you hear a couple of capturing that takes place in our metropolis.”
Adams pointed to the lethal Tuesday evening capturing of Excenia Mette, 61 – an harmless bystander who heard gunshots and easily stepped exterior to see if her grandson was OK.
“[I was] talking with the son of a sufferer of gun violence yesterday, and speaking in regards to the stunning life that his mother lived, and the way she gave again and contributed to the Harlem group,” the mayor mentioned.
“Once we lose somebody prematurely to violence, it impacts us all, and even when the bullet hits the supposed goal, the emotional pathway doesn’t cease,” he added. “It continues to tear aside the anatomy of our metropolis, the anatomy of our group, and that’s the reason we’re right here immediately.”
Adams mentioned the now-destroyed weapons are solely a small fraction of the greater than 21,400 weapons seized throughout his administration.
Out of the 21,400, greater than 1,400 have been recognized as ghost weapons – unserialized, untraceable weapons assembled from a package or printed by means of 3-D printers, metropolis officers mentioned.
The variety of ghost weapons recovered within the metropolis has been on a gentle rise since 2018, when the NYPD seized 17 such weapons, officers mentioned.
That quantity almost tripled in 2019, when 48 ghost weapons had been recovered – and its surged to 150 in 2020, 263 in 2021, 585 in 2022, 394 in 2023 and 438 in 2024.
Thus far in 2025, 71 ghost weapons have been seized, in response to officers.
“From day one, this administration has mounted an all out effort to cut back gun violence,” Adams mentioned. “From our gun violence prevention activity power to our neighborhood security groups, I’ve testified earlier than Congress about gun violence, urged the Supreme Court docket to uphold gun security legal guidelines, labored with leaders and mayors throughout the nation, and sued the makers and entrepreneurs of ghost weapons.”
The scraps from the smashed-up weapons shall be donated to the Faculty of Cooperative Technical Schooling (Coop Tech) in East Harlem, the place college students within the welding vocational program will use the metallic to create a memorial honoring the victims misplaced by gun violence.
“I need to thank them for taking up this necessary undertaking,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch mentioned. “These weapons don’t have any place in our neighborhoods. They stoked worry, inflicted ache, and destroyed lives. And so they belong proper right here, within the tear field of an industrial metallic shredder.”
Adams invited households of these misplaced to gun violence to name out their slain family’ names because the weapons went by means of the shredder.
“I’m going to say this over and over, and it must develop into a relentless message,” Hizzoner mentioned. “It is a day when we have now to determine whose aspect are you on. Whose aspect are you on? Are you on the aspect of coddling and defending people who find themselves inflicting violence on harmless individuals? Or are you on the aspect of the harmless individuals? I’m on the aspect of the harmless individuals.”
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