“It was a sad and disturbing way to start the New Year,” lamented the Queens Borough President
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Robert Williams, a young man from 20 years, he died shot in front of a Queens hotel on New Year’s Eve, becoming the first homicide of 2021 in NYC.
Later of a 2020 with a homicide numbers on the rise, 2021 has had an equally violent start: at least seven people were shot yesterday in town, three of them at the “Umbrella Hotel” in Kew Gardens, shortly after 1: 01 am on January 1, reported ABC News.
A group that rented a room there for a New Years Eve party he got into a street dispute with another, according to e l report. In addition to Williams, two other men from 20 and 40 years were hospitalized with gunshot wounds.
Williams passed away at the Queens Hospital Center. Police have made no arrests and the investigation is continuing. “It was a sad and worrying way to start the New Year,” lamented the Queens Borough President, Donovan Richards, in a statement.
“Whoever is responsible for this heinous crime must be brought to justice quickly. It is also time that the “Hotel Umbrella”, which has already been cited for numerous public safety violations, is closed. This hotel is a public nuisance that has no place in Kew Gardens or anywhere in our district or city. Hotel guests and residents of the surrounding community should not be subjected to dangerous conditions, ”added Richards.
In another incident, a woman from 33 years was hit by a stray bullet that went through the window of her room in Brooklyn, shortly after midnight on Thursday to Friday. She was admitted to Brookdale University Hospital in stable condition.
NYC ended 2020 with at least 462 homicides, an increase of at least 41% versus 2019, most with firearms. It was the third consecutive year with increased murders, after the city recorded a modern-era low with 292 murders in 2017.
The last homicide of 2020 was a young man of 26 years shot in a car in the Jamaica section of Queens, Thursday night 31.
Shooting incidents increased 97% in 2020. And the number of victims with firearms rose 102%.
NYC’s first homicide victim of 2021 identified by police https://t.co/wADdCOmKua pic.twitter.com/pgX7zU8AWL
– New York Post (@nypost) January 1, 2021
