Report: Suffolk County figures show 44% increase in shootings

The number of shootings in Suffolk County this year has increased by 44%, sparked by what police say is a wave of youth gang violence this summer, a new state report shows.

There were 23 shootings in Suffolk this year through July, compared with 16 in the same time period in 2024, according to the report on the state funded-Gun Involved Violence Elimination program, or GIVE.

"We’re certainly concerned about the recent spike," Suffolk County Police Commissioner Kevin Catalina said in an interview Thursday. "There has been a very recent spike within the last couple of months, I would say, and what I would attribute that to is very, very young gun violence, and that’s certainly problematic."

Despite the spike, Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine said the county is still one of the safest in the country.

"Suffolk County has not yet completed a full review and analysis of this report to determine whether this is a one-year outlier when looking at a multiyear comprehensive data set," Romaine said. "However, Suffolk remains one of the safest counties in the nation — a testament to the dedication, professionalism and tireless work of the men and women of our law enforcement community."

Catalina said although shootings had spiked in the last few months, the data should be looked at through a historical lens.

"If you look back historically, we're actually much lower than we've been," said Catalina, who said the average decrease of shooting incidents over the last four years is 55%. The report said shootings are down 36% over five years. 

Deploying police assets

To combat the recent uptick, Catalina said the police department has been "rapidly deploying" gang personnel to areas where shootings may occur, communicating with its informants and using officers' knowledge of gang habits. 

"We're able to deploy our personnel into places where we're going to stop the next incident from occurring," Catalina said.

"The most problematic gangs that we have in Suffolk County are Blood subsets that all seem to fight with each other," said Catalina, who added it "drives the violence." 

Violent crimes connected to MS-13 have decreased, said Catalina, who explained the police department is staying "vigilant" because there's a "younger generation of gang members that is always looking to come up." 

The same report showed shootings in Nassau and the area patrolled by the Hempstead Police Department were down slightly.

"The Nassau County Police Department, under County Executive Bruce Blakeman has hired 300 new police officers and we have the highest trained professional police force in America with the best equipment and new state of the art training village at their disposal," Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said in a statement. 

GIVE funding for Suffolk

Gov. Kathy Hochul recently announced $1.3 million in GIVE funding for Suffolk County in fiscal year 2025, including $459,998 for the police department and  $564,291 for the district attorney's office, according to a spokesperson for the state's Department of Criminal Justice Services.

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney, in an interview, said although his office has aggressively prosecuted adult suspected gang members, the 2017-era "Raise the Age" law that prevented prosecutors from automatically charging 16- and 17-year-olds in adult criminal court has hampered efforts to combat juvenile gang crime. 

"We’re up this year, but overall we’re down," Tierney said. "It’s cyclical. The majority of the shootings, it’s an infinitely small percent of the population, and it’s always a battle to get that one percent off the street. The thing that exacerbates it is 'Raise The Age,' because often times these 15-, 16-, 17-year-olds are committing these acts of violence and are getting the 'Raise The Age' benefit of the doubt."

Spike of gun violence 

There has been a spate of gun violence in Suffolk this summer.

On June 19, a 16-year-old boy and a 25-year-old woman were shot near an apartment complex pool during a fight between two groups, police have said. A 15-year-old was arrested and charged with second-degree attempted murder, first-degree assault and other charges.

"It appears that shooting is a gang motivated shooting as well," Catalina said. "It looks like that individual was attempting to recruit somebody into a gang and more than likely that was the motivation for that shooting." 

A week later, two teenagers were shot in separate shootings on the same day in Central Islip and Patchogue, Newsday has reported. The Patchogue shooting, in which a 14-year-old allegedly fired multiple rounds at a 17-year-old, is believed to be gang related, police said.

The victim suffered injuries that were not life-threatening, police said.

The Central Islip shooting, during which an 18-year-old was shot in the arm after an altercation in a gas station parking lot, does not appear to be gang-related, police said.

Homicide numbers up

The number of people killed by gunfire also increased significantly year over year. Eight people in Suffolk County have been killed with firearms through July this year, the report said, a marked increase from the one homicide-by-firearm victim from January to July 2024.

Four of the eight were murder-suicides and didn't have any documented history of domestic violence, Catalina said.

Thomas Beverly, program manager at SNUG Wyandanch, a violence prevention group that works with youth at high risk of committing shootings or getting shot, said Suffolk needs more programming like SNUG to prevent gun violence.

"We need more community leaders, we need more that can connect the youth in the right direction," said Beverly, who said more policing is "definitely not the answer" to the shooting uptick.

"The police do a wonderful job on trying to stop this, but I definitely think a program like SNUG that has influential staff members that can relate to these community members who are actually doing the shootings is more beneficial because we’re able to get to the root cause, we’re able to contact other family members who can put a stop to this," Beverly said.

By Nicole Fuller

nicole.fuller@newsday.com@NicoleFuller

Nicole Fuller is Newsday's senior criminal justice reporter. She began working at Newsday in 2012 and previously covered local government.