Residents Say Illegal Fireworks Remain Major Problem In New York City

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Bill de Blasio, in what will be his last summer as mayor of New York, promised that there will be a crackdown on dangerous and loud illegal fireworks after the tumultuous year 2020.

“Every summer, we expect the right kind of fireworks… but we also know that there is a real problem with the wrong kind of fireworks,” de Blasio said during his virtual press conference on Wednesday.

In the first three weeks of June 2020, there were 8,967 complaints about illegal fireworks in calls to the city's number 311, representing a 320% increase over the same period in 2019.

The mayor said that in 2021 law enforcement will "go after" people who bring fireworks from other states so that NYC has a calmer summer compared to last year when there were fireworks almost every night in the five counties.

So far this summer, the NYPD has seized thousands of dollars in explosives and made more than 20 fireworks-related arrests. But despite all that, on Sunday night the city’s 311 and 911 operators still​ received nearly 6,000 calls about illegal fireworks, CBS2’s Ali Bauman reported Monday.

The noise was prevalent from the top of Manhattan to Brooklyn.

There have already been arrests for these practices.

In the weeks leading up to the July 4 celebration, authorities have seized illegal fireworks valued at $ 54,000, New York City Police announced Saturday.

This is thanks to a collaboration with the New York City Sheriff's Office, the Fire Department, and the New York City Fireworks Task Force, which is made up of various agencies.

In three separate operations, carried out in June and early July, investigators made 22 arrests related to illegal fireworks and seized six illegal firearms, authorities said.

“The NYPD Office of Intelligence has been an integral part of a Task Force that collaborates with the Sheriff's Office and the Fire Department to develop information on major vendors, intercept illegal fireworks as they enter the City of New York, the duty stations where they are stored before the sale and the sellers of illegal fireworks, ”said Police Commissioner Dermot Shea. "These arrests and seizures to date demonstrate our focused and tireless commitment to that mission."

These operations represent a variety of NYPD intelligence-based policing strategies that are at the core of the department's public safety mission, Police said. All the detained individuals were men, most of whom were in their 20s and 30s. In terms of criminal records, those arrested ranged from first-time offenders to people with previous major arrests.

While their crimes were varied, many had previously been arrested for violent felonies, including eleven for gun possession. During Operation Vila Romana, eight of those arrested had previously been arrested for assault, including one person who had been convicted of assaulting a Police officer and another arrested for attempted murder.

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