The shootings took place in a neighborhood where it is, in principle, forbidden to walk around armed. Two suspects fled after the fact.
Source AFP
© PETER GERBER / AFP
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UA young man was shot and killed Thursday evening in New York, near Times Square, police said, one of the emblematic tourist sites of the megalopolis where it is in principle forbidden to walk around armed. Called urgently around 5:30 p.m. (22:30 GMT), the New York police (NYPD) rescued a 22-year-old man who was shot in the chest at the intersection of 8e Avenue and 44e Manhattan street, in front of a fast food restaurant. Transported to hospital, “he succumbed to his injuries,” said a police spokesperson by email. “There were no arrests. The investigation is continuing,” added the same source.
According to the newspaper New York Daily News, relying on a witness on the spot, the young man was shot dead by two people who fled. And, according to this same source, the shootings caused a start of panic in this hypertourist district with “a stampede of people trying to escape”.
Times Square: “Gun Free Zone”
Times Square is one of the most famous New York sites in the world: a crossroads and an esplanade in the heart of Manhattan, surrounded by giant electronic billboards lit day and night for the 50 million visitors who flock there each year. . In principle, since 1is last September, it is forbidden to walk armed in this whole district.
As part of the fight against crime and the proliferation of firearms in New York, the center-right mayor Eric Adams, a former police officer, had put up dozens of signs “Times Square: Gun Free Zone” (“Zone without firearms”) around the square.
After a surge in the number of firearm homicides in 2020 and 2021 in New York, the latter fell in 2022 to 433 in a city of 8.5 million people and millions of visitors.
