Brooklyn gunmen don’t take a holiday, even for the coronavirus.
Shootings in the borough have actually jumped since the contagion, unlike other boroughs — prompting the NYPD to transfer detectives and beat cops from elsewhere around the city to try to combat the uptick, police told The Post on Friday.
“With the social distancing, you would figure that violence would drop and we would have less violent acts in regards to shootings, though we’re not seeing that in Brooklyn,” said NYPD Chief Michael LiPetri.
He said drug-related gang shootings are fueling the rise — with parolees or people out on probation being targeted.
“We do see that same trend that we’ve seen since the beginning of the year, where that [drug] crew nexus is responsible for about half of our shootings,” LiPetri said.
Brooklyn has seen a nearly 6 percent increase in gunplay and a 10.5 percent increase in shooting victims since March 16 compared with the same period last year, according to the latest statistics. In terms of numbers, that’s two more shootings and four additional victims.
But in all of the other boroughs, gun violence has slowed, with Manhattan, for example, recording nearly 30 percent fewer incidents and 16 fewer victims.
So far this year, shootings citywide are still up by 7.4 percent, from 217 to 233 — but during the outbreak, shootings went down overall 11.1 percent, according to NYPD data.
“So shelter in place, a lot less people out in the streets,” LiPetri noted — except in Brooklyn.
Additionally, reports of gunfire in which no one was wounded also jumped by 20 percent in Brooklyn during the pandemic, according to the chief.
LiPetri said the uptick has forced the department to move a number of cops into the borough to investigate the shootings and bolster patrols. The department has also reassigned detectives from other units to help close the cases.
The added cops have helped hold steady the gun arrests in the borough, where the largest number of people have been busted with firearms, according to the NYPD.
But police sources griped about the added patrols, complaining that most people arrested won’t even be arraigned.
“We are asking our men and woman to go out there and make arrests in this trying time, transport them down to central booking,” just to have them freed because of COVID-19, a source said.
A rep for the Brooklyn DA’s Office responded, “The fact is that the NYPD solved only 11 percent of shootings in Brooklyn during the public health emergency and just 23 percent of shootings for all of 2020, leaving dangerous individuals on the streets.”
According to the rep, the DA has only deferred prosecution on nonviolent cases that are not eligible for bail and would be cut free regardless.