Slayings soar as city hits boiling point

New York City’s homicide rate is rising as fast as its sweltering temperatures.

There have been a staggering 16 murders in the past five days — including seven since Friday night. They have claimed a variety of victims, including children, clubgoers, a shopkeeper and a husband.

While murders are still on pace for a record low, at 193 so far this year, Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Queens) called the situation a “brewing cauldron of trouble.”

“People are legitimately alarmed for what the future holds,” Vallone, chairman of the council’s Public Safety Committee, said, noting the NYPD’s dwindling force.

There have been 672 shootings this year as of July 1, compared with 606 at the same day last year — a 10.9 percent spike.

Between noon Friday and noon yesterday, authorities responded to at least 18 shootings.

The spate of murders that kicked off the steamy weekend included:

HAIL OF BULLETS

Thugs armed with an AK-47 settled a nightclub beef by following their victims to a quiet Queens street and spraying their SUV with 63 bullets early yesterday — killing three and wounding another, law-enforcement sources said.

“Their heads were practically blown clean off. Exposed brain and everything,” one neighbor said of the horrifying scene.

“I saw two dead guys in the car and one dead guy on the ground.

“The Jeep was blood-soaked. It was sickening,” said the witness, who identified himself as Jude.

The victims were at the Albany Manor club in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, when they got into an argument with another party, law-enforcement sources said.

The assailants tailed them for nearly 11 miles to Springfield Gardens, where they stopped to drop off one member of the group at his girlfriend’s house.

As the victims double-parked outside 185-4 144th Ave. at around 5 a.m., the gunman opened fire.

Jojo Longchamp, a 15-year-old boy visiting his aunt on the block, said he heard gunfire and a voice scream, “Who’s next?”

“I was sleeping, and I jumped out of bed because I heard gunshots. It sounded like a lot of explosions,” Jojo said.

“They sounded almost like firecrackers. These guys were crazy. I was afraid to come outside.”

Jude said a glass window on his front door had been shattered in the fusillade.

“What if I was coming outside at that time? I could have gotten killed!”

He added that cops took two guns from the victims’ car.

Relatives identified two of three dead men as Jason Wood, 27, and James Bussereth, 33, the driver of the SUV.

Jason Wood’s father, Lenworth, 49, described receiving the phone call no parent wants to receive.