Monday’s tragic shooting in Midtown Manhattan, where a gunman fatally shot four people before taking his own life—now stands as the deadliest mass shooting in New York City in over two decades.
The last time the city saw a mass shooting of this scale was in 2000, when two armed men carried out a brutal robbery at a Wendy’s restaurant in Flushing, Queens, killing five employees and injuring two others.
While New York has experienced other high-profile gun attacks since then, none have resulted in as many fatalities. In 2022, a gunman wearing a gas mask unleashed smoke grenades and opened fire inside a crowded subway car in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood. Although ten people were shot and 19 more were injured in the chaos, all survived.
In 2017, a disgruntled former physician opened fire with an assault rifle inside Bronx-Lebanon Hospital, killing one woman and injuring six others before dying by suicide. The shooter had resigned from the hospital in 2015 under pressure.
A decade earlier, in 2007, a Marine veteran caused terror in Greenwich Village after firing multiple rounds at a local pizzeria. He fatally shot a bartender and two unarmed volunteer officers before being killed by police.
Ironically, just one day before Monday’s deadly rampage, Mayor Eric Adams announced that New York City had reached a historic low in both shootings and homicides. “If guns are not on the street, they cannot be used to harm innocent people—and we accomplished that,” Adams said.
Despite those gains, the Midtown shooting has shaken the city. It also contributes to a growing national crisis—according to the Gun Violence Archive, this was the 254th mass shooting in the United States so far this year.
