'We're taking back the streets': Mayor Bill de Blasio orders MORE cops to be stationed across NYC to curb gun violence after weeks of bloodshed with 142% surge in shootings - despite slashing NYPD budget by $1billion

• Bill de Blasio unveiled his 'Take Back the Block' plan to curb gun violence Friday 
• The initiative focuses on increasing community involvement with civilians serving as 'violence interrupters'
• It will also expand the police presence in violent hotspots including Harlem  
• De Blasio announced the plan nearly a week after Fourth of July weekend saw 63 people shot and at least 11 killed in New York City
• Gun violence has surged more than 140 percent over the past month
• NYPD officials blamed the surge on de Blasio's decision to cut $1billion from the department's budget and accused him of 'surrendering' the city to crime 

Mayor Bill de Blasio has asked the NYPD to place more cops at violent hotspots in New York City after weeks of bloodshed on the streets - despite having just cut the department's budget by $1billion. 

De Blasio unveiled his new 'Take Back the Block' initiative to curb gun violence in the Big Apple on Friday, nearly a week after Fourth of July weekend saw 63 people shot and at least 11 killed. 

'We will take back our streets in Harlem and all over our city but we're going to do it from the ground up,' the mayor said at a press conference. 

'We are going to break the cycle of violence.

'Starting tonight, you're going to see a combination of things happening - increased NYPD presence at hotspots at key locations, more patrol officers on foot in vehicles, but also more community presence because that is the key to this, community leaders, committee organizations walking with police officers showing common cause.' 

Gun violence has surged more than 140 percent in New York City over the past month compared with the same period last year, according to city data. 

NYPD leaders were quick to point the finger at de Blasio after he moved to cut it's budget by $1billion late last month in response to demands from Black Lives Matter protesters. 

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Over the past week the mayor has repeatedly promised to present a plan to combat the surge in violence, and after days of delays he finally did it on Friday - albeit without any NYPD officials in attendance.  

'We have seen some really tough weekends, particularly last weekend and particularly in Harlem,' de Blasio said. 

'We saw way too much violence and it's not something that's acceptable in this city. We cannot have people live in fear, we cannot have our young people in the cross hairs.'

The mayor's plan relies heavily on an increase in community involvement rather than police presence, although he did say that more officers would be dispatched to more than 20 streets and in city housing complexes.  

De Blasio said he wants to bring in community members to serve as 'violence interrupters', and to increase faith-based outreach programs on the streets as part of a bolstered 'neighborhood watch'.  

He said his initiative will also work to increase youth engagement by introducing pop-up basketball events and a 'town hall' for kids.  

'We have to do better and this weekend coming up has to be better, particularly in Harlem, where we're focusing a lot of our efforts,' de Blasio said.

'Everyone agreed on a common vision, working together.' 

It's unclear whether the NYPD is officially on board with de Blasio's 'common vision' after having repeatedly attacked his recent police reforms in the face of surging violence on the streets.  

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea accused de Blasio of 'bowing to mob rule' by cutting the department's budget and said that the subsequent violence over the Fourth of July weekend was 'predictable'. 

'You heard me saying: "A storm is coming," and we're in the middle of it right now,' Shea told NY1 on Monday. 

Shea argued that there is plenty of blame to go around but specifically condemned the mayor's latest policing reforms.  

He ridiculed a new local law that criminalizes the use of chokeholds, saying: 'Police officers should not have to worry more about getting arrested than the person with the gun that they're rolling around on the street with.'

Shea also railed against how the inmate population at Rikers Island has been reduced by half thanks to bail reform and efforts to limit the spread of coronavirus inside the notorious prison.   

'Where is the other half right now?' Shea asked. 'We've transplanted general population to the streets of New York City and it's extremely frustrating. And don't think this is happening by happenstance. This is organized.'

However, Shea said it's not too late to address city chaos.  

'We can fix this,' he said. 'We don't need a lot of new things. 

'What we need is support — and that's in short supply. We need tools. We need the laws that make sense. And then we need resources. Those three things and we can turn this around quickly.'

NYPD Chief Terence Monahan also weighed in on the weekend violence on Monday, calling it 'unacceptable'. 

He said the surge was due to 'a combination of things', including the pandemic, new reforms and heightened tensions between police and citizens. 

'The animosity toward police out there is tremendous,' Monahan said. 

'Just about everyone we deal with is looking to fight a police officer when we make an arrest, so it is vital that we get communities together supporting and speaking up for police.'   

De Blasio sought to defend his police reforms during a press conference on Monday afternoon where he blamed the surge in violence on the coronavirus pandemic. 

The mayor acknowledged that the city saw 'too much violence' between Friday and Sunday and said: 'We have a lot of work to do to address it.'

But he argued that 'there is not one cause for something like this', citing failures by the court system, economic uncertainty and the fact that residents are restless after months in coronavirus lockdown.  

'This is directly related to coronavirus,' de Blasio said. 'This is a very serious situation. As we're getting into warmer and warmer weather, we're feeling the effects of people being cooped up for months, the economy hasn't restarted – we have a real problem here.'

De Blasio vowed to 'double down' against violence with a multi-pronged response that would include an emphasis on neighborhood policing. 

He called for 'all hands on deck' with community leaders and elected officials as the city works to bounce back from being 'dealt a really tough hand'.  

'It was the health care crisis in March and April, May we were coming out of it, the warmer months,' he said. 'People are cooped up, they don't have the normal things to engage their lives.

 'But we're going to overcome it. It's going to be tough and take hard work. I know it feels very unsettling for people but we're going to fight it back.'