The biggest danger faced by New York teens is simply walking Harlem’s mean streets.
A shocking study by the NYC Health Department reveals that 200 kids age 15 through 17 died from gunfire — more than any other cause of injury between 2002 and 2011.
- Sixty-three others died from stabbings.
- Bullets proved far more deadly than cars. Eighty teens died as a result of car accidents, the second-leading cause of death.
- Thirty-five died from suicide by hanging and 33 from accidental falls.
More than 53 percent of the teen deaths were classified as homicides. Two-thirds of those victims were black.
The study’s findings come amid a spike in shootings in the Big Apple this year — as well as new constraints on street stops by cops looking for weapons.
East Harlem saw nine shooting deaths. Based on its population, El Barrio had the second-highest death rate — 18.2 per 100,000 residents.
“Nine out of every 10 firearm-related deaths . . . were homicides, compared to 64 percent nationwide,” according to the 2013 study.
Among the teens included in the gunfire body count were:
- 17-year-old Cory Squire, the dad of a 3-year-old. He was shot once in the back of the head as he walked down a Harlem street in May 2009. He had been trying to cut his ties with the notorious Bloods gang at the time.
- Juan Otero, 15, shot in East Harlem in June 2011.
- College-bound Genice Clark, 17, shot dead in June 2010 after getting into a fight with another girl.
There was some good news in the report.
The city’s youth firearms homicide rate was higher than the national rate — but was less than half the average rate in other big cities, the study found.
A big part of the problem comes from out-of-state.
The report said politicians must do more to stop the influx of illegal guns coming into the city from places where firearms are easy to buy.
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