Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Visits Victims of Sunset Park Shooting

Earlier this evening, Governor Kathy Hochul visited victims of the Sunset Park shooting at Maimonides Hospital.

AUDIO of the event is available here.

PHOTOS are available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

I wanted to brief the press on some late-breaking developments. First of all, I want to thank the leadership of Maimonides Hospital. I just came for a visit that I'll reference in a couple of moments, but I want to thank Ken Gibbs, his entire leadership team, for the sensitivity that they've dealt with this as they started getting patients at 8:45 this morning.

I'm joined here today with the CEO of the MTA, Janno Lieber. We'll have some updates to give if you have any questions on the status of trains and what we know thus far, as well as my Director of State Operations, Kathryn Garcia, who's been indispensable in this process.

Late breaking news is that there has been a person of interest identified, a person associated with the U-Haul. And I want to thank our partners in law enforcement for their diligence, working throughout the day, but also to New Yorkers. We're going to count on all of you to be vigilant, to keep your eyes open, to know how to use the tip lines and reach out if you see anyone who fits the description that has been posted thus far. That'll be an important step toward the resolution of what has been a very long, stressful day for everyone from the MTA, the police departments, even places like this amazing hospital that unexpectedly saw a number of patients arrive.

In fact, at this hospital, they're dealing with young people. There was a 12-year-old, there was a 13-year-old, a 16-year-old and an 18-year-old who arrived this morning. I had the opportunity to meet the 18-year-old patient, a young Latino man who was a student at Borough of Manhattan Community College.

He was on his way to school, and he was awaiting his surgery on an injury. It was either a bullet wound, or a shrapnel wound. I had a chance to talk to the doctors about his condition, but he was able to communicate with me. He seems to be doing well and he's in very good spirits, as well as his mother and grandmother who are there as well.

Also had a chance to have a challenging encounter with a woman, the mother of a 16-year-old victim who just had hand surgery. And I thank God for the incredible talent of the doctors here who were able to restore life to his thumb. And after surgery he should be able to be discharged tomorrow but it is a long recovery.

His mother does not speak English, she is Chinese, she is there alone. And it was so sad to hear her through a translator talk about her anxiety. All she has is her son and it's just the two of them. And she does not know what she's going to do when she leaves. So I had a long hug with her and let her know that we send the love of all New Yorkers.

She just lost her job as a home health care aide, if anyone wants a very warm, caring person to be a home health care aide, I'm going to give her a great recommendation. So let's make sure she has one less thing to worry about, a wonderful person.

So I just wanted to come out here and show support again, thanking the MTA workers who with their quick action averted even more tragedy this morning. All the fellow riders this morning who stepped up to help people when they were down and injured.

Just another testament to how incredible New Yorkers are. As well as the law enforcement, healthcare teams, and everyone who had come together so powerfully in a time of crisis. And we have to ensure that this specter of gun violence in our streets and in our subways ends once and for all. I'm committed to working with the Mayor to deploy the resources. And we have our MTA police, very vigilant, working on the grounds as well.

So, we're there to assist, we're there to help, as well as continue working with our federal partners on leads. We did establish a gun interdiction task force, a nine-state group of individuals who come together regularly. And we believe that if this person has left the state, we'll be able to use the resources and our connections and relationships we have with nine neighboring states to help bring this person to justice.

So, we hope this resolves soon, New Yorkers just want to get on with life. I took the subway over here, earlier this evening with Janno to let New Yorkers know we appreciate their resiliency, how tough they are, but they still keep coming on this subway. And I was really grateful to see that New Yorkers could not be kept down. There was testament to that today, we saw that on our subway rides.