Following a weekend of gun violence that left three dead, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton declared that the city is safe and sound.
“We made the city safe. It’s the safest it’s ever been,” Bratton said on Monday.
“Twenty years ago, 1994, the mission was quite clear in the city — to take back the streets . . . in a city out of control,” he said.
“We now live in the safest large city in America and one of the safest in the world, thanks in large part to the efforts of the cops,” Bratton told 607 Police Academy graduates at Madison Square Garden.
There were nine shooting incidents over 12 hours Saturday into Sunday, with fatalities in St. Albans, Queens, University Heights, The Bronx, and Brownsville, Brooklyn. A fourth man was killed early Monday in The Bronx.
Gun violence is up 8 percent this year, with 521 incidents versus 482 last year.
But Bratton isn’t worried.
“It is my expectation . . . that we will make even better progress against the remaining crime in the city that still afflicts so many parts of the city,” he said.