By Gus Saltonstall
Multiple gunshots were fired after a fight broke out Friday morning on the Upper West Side, according to police and eyewitnesses.
A New York Police Department spokesperson told West Side Rag that a verbal dispute turned physical between three men around 8:45 a.m. near Central Park West and West 71st Street. In the fight, two men approached the other man, and the latter fired off three gunshots, police said.
None of the shots landed, though, and a person of interest was taken into custody, NYPD added.
A man, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Rag in a phone call on Friday that he was in the park at the time and heard the gunshots. He then spoke to a woman who saw the situation unfold and threw herself over the stone wall separating Central Park West from the park to protect herself.
She told him that she saw what appeared to be two construction workers confront a man on a bench on the park side of Central Park West and West 71st Street, which turned into a fist fight. The man then pulled out a “revolver” and fired shots, which caused everyone to scatter, he said the eyewitness told him.
West Side Rag could see blood Friday morning near the Central Park bench.
Both the area around the bench and West 71st Street, between Columbus and Central Park West, were closed off by police around 10 a.m. on Friday.
This is a developing story, please check back in for updates.
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City safest it’s been in decades. Gun crime at all time low.
It is. According to both NYPD and FBI stats. The mere fact that “if it bleeds, it leads,” so the few incidents that DO occur are overly sensationalized, particularly in the media, does not change the data. But your sarcasm is noted.
Why are you posting this comment? I don’t get it. What point are you trying to make? Ate you just trying to aggravate people?
Yes it is. One anecdote does not a statistic make.
Josh: That’s true, but there do seem to be more than a few “anecdotes” around these days.
Here is the data from the NYPD
NYPD ANNOUNCES FEWEST SHOOTING INCIDENTS, SHOOTING VICTIMS, AND MURDERS IN RECORDED HISTORY FOR THE FIRST SEVEN MONTHS OF 2026 AND IN JULY
https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/PR012/nypd-fewest-shooting-incidents-shooting-victims-murders-recorded-history-the
I don’t care what is said.. There has been more crime in the last half year on the upper west than I can remember reading about – right on here. Period.
Could be more reporting and coverage. It wasn’t easy to find out about a lot of this stuff 10 or 20 years ago. This would not have made the local 6pm or 11pm news unless it was an extremely slow news day.
Whoa. I hope the construction workers are ok.
Sounds like they were instigators and both of them were pummeling the homeless man. It’s his blood on the ground. A number of witnesses stated that they were the dangerous ones and were pleading with them to stop.
According to the witness who is cited in this article, in her statement on the UWS subreddit, the construction workers beat the homeless man to a bloody pulp BEFORE he pulled the gun out
And yet ANOTHER incident on the “periphery” of the UWS (i.e., RSD or CPW), where it seems the vast majority of these types of incidents (robberies, shootings, etc.) are occurring. Clearly, the NYPD, and specifically the 20th Precinct, needs to start monitoring the two peripheries of the neighborhood more actively and consistently.
Too bad Mamdani decided to cancel the additional 500 officers that were to be added this year. And last year they needed to take the new recruits for the precincts and put them in the subways instead of above ground. Not sure why when they said the “subways are so safe.” Why add officers then? If those 2 things didn’t happen, they might have had enough officers this year for the peripheries.
500 officers spread throughout a city of 8 million would not accomplish very much. The NYPD force is at the second highest in NYC history – 35,000 active officers – so the problem is not in numbers, it is in deployment practices.
The problem has nothing to do with the police. The problem is that we don’t prosecute criminals in New York City. We let them out to repeat offend over and over and over again.
The US is a paradox. It has the highest incarceration rate in the world and the highest gun violence rate in the developed world. People will always fight and people will always kill, but in a country with more than 330,000,000 guns in private hands it’s astonishing how safe we are, especially in NYC.
That may be true of “lesser” crimes, but it is FAR less true (if true at all) about “major” crimes, which is why the data says what it does (that NYC has had the lowest crime and murder rate in history under Mamdani).
Yes, some of the processes and guidelines of the courts allow SOME criminals to return to the street, where they often repeat the “low level” crimes for which they were arrested.
But crimes involving guns,, knives, death, mortal or critical injury, etc. are prosecuted fully, and the overwhelming majority of perpetrators serve time.
Your frustration is noted – and in some cases warranted – but your “broad-brushing” is simply regurgitating right-wing talking points without doing any research.
I agree with you Ian. However, don’t most criminals start with minor crimes, then work their way up to major ones? Wouldn’t it make sense to stop this progression before a major crime has been committed?
If you feel somewhat helpless to change anything these days, please consider…giving blood.
Best comment of the week. WSR would you consider an article about local blood donation sites/opportunities? I believe the city is in a critical shortage of certain types
“None of the shots landed, though, and a person of interest was taken into custody, NYPD added.“
“West Side Rag could see blood Friday morning near the Central Park bench.“
Well, I don’t know what to make of this reporting.
If you read the article attentively perhaps you will know what to make of the reporting:
“… verbal dispute turned physical …”
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it…. Media. coverage of every incident of violent crime in local or city wide news seem as though the trees are falling every day. The police know incident rates and I assume assign people in proportion and nature of the incidents. or am i being panglossian?
Im so glad the community pushed for more cameras. They are so helpful in enabling our police to do their jobs. They may not stop crime but at least they help ID those involved.