Elected officials from across Queens came together in Roy Wilkins Park to call for a united front against the recent uptick of gun violence in the borough on Sunday, July 19.
Led by District Attorney Melinda Katz and Acting Borough President Sharon Lee, the peace rally aimed it sights toward de-escalation and unifying behind one message: stop the violence.
Katz and Lee were joined by elected officials from southeast Queens including Congressman Gregory Meeks, state Senators Leroy Comrie and James Sanders, Assembly members Clyde Vanel, Alicia Hyndman and Vivian Cook, and City Council members Donovan Richards, I. Daneek Miller, Adrienne Adams and Rory Lancman.
A handful of community groups and local organizations also attended the Sunday’s rally.
The summer has seen an increase in shootings across the city, including in southeast Queens, where shooting incidents are up by 360 percent this month when compared to July 2019, according to the NYPD. While gun violence is on the rise, there has only been one murder in all of south Queens in the same time period, according to the NYPD’s crime tracker, CompStat.
See photos from the Peace Rally below.
