New York City officials on Monday said detectives are searching for the suspect who has been accused of shooting an innocent bystander who was visiting Times Square with his family over the weekend.
“This is a place that is so precious and so important to our city, it has to be safe,” the mayor said as he announced the new safety protocols.
The mayor announced a new safety plan, called the Times Square Safety Action Plan, which includes an additional 50 NYPD officers, both visible and undercover, in the Times Square area while also increasing the enforcement of illegal vending related to gun violence. The plan put in place will be active immediately.
"After this shooting and the shooting that we had a couple of weeks ago, it is important that we put a lot more of a police presence over there," NYPD Chief of Department Rodney Harrison said during the briefing.
During the latest shooting that happened around 5 p.m. on Sunday, the gunman-at-large is accused of shooting Samuel Poulin, a 21-year-old man from upstate New York who was visiting Manhattan with his family.
Poulin was grazed by a bullet that struck him in the back. He was rushed to Bellevue Hospital Center with non-life-threatening injuries.
Harrison noted at the briefing that the shooting was not targeted and occurred after a group of panhandlers selling CDs got into a conflict, adding that this information is after a preliminary investigation and officials are still working to "get to the bottom of" what exactly happened.
He added they are "making sure we’re not just having the omnipresence out there, but we’re going to make sure we engage the individuals that are part of this aggressive solicitation, aggressive panhandling."
Sunday's incident happened close to the site of a shooting last month that wounded two women and a toddler.