Harlem The Second Largest The Second-Highest Death Rate in NYC

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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