Bullet hits NYC bus in Harlem

MTA bus hit by gunfire

It is the fourth time in six months that there was an incident like this.

NEW YORK - Gunfire erupted on the streets of East Harlem on Sunday. Bullets struck an MTA bus and shattered a window. Surveillance video from a store on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 124th Street shows the moment when a man steps forward with a gun and starts firing, a few people ducking as they run away. No one was injured.

But according to the Transport Workers Union, this is the fourth time in six months that gunfire has struck an MTA bus.

"A terrible, terrible incident," Mayor Eric Adams said on Monday as he was leaving an unrelated press event.

Last month, Adams rolled out his blueprint to end gun violence, which aims to send out more officers to patrol the streets and subways and looks for ways to target the flow of guns arriving in New York.

But Rebecca Fischer of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence says it is all going to come down to how this plan is implemented.

"There are all of the underlying structural issues of poverty and unemployment, with easy access to guns that has led to more gun violence," Fischer explained.

Adams has made it clear he wants to place more of an emphasis on community and hospital-based intervention programs, meeting with groups early on in his tenure to see how the city can cut bureaucratic red tape.

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Fischer said a partnership between these intervention groups and law enforcement will be important in identifying hot spots, but once again some of these plans lack details.

"We need to see more specificity on exactly how that's going to be implemented and ensure that the funding that we're seeing coming from Washington is really going towards community-based strategies with support and alignment from law enforcement in terms of sharing data and working as partners on the ground," Fischer said.

The driver who was operating the bus when it was struck with bullets in East Harlem is safe but shaken. Now some drivers are even asking for bulletproof vests.

MTA Chairman Janno Lieber said the agency is aware of the growing concerns.

"There is a violence problem in our city, especially a gun violence problem," Lieber said. "Fortunately, the new mayor and his administration have made this a priority."

Adams, as he was leaving his press conference Monday, said that he plans to make an announcement regarding the city's efforts to combat gun crime on Thursday.