Governor Hochul: "I want to reassure parents that the State of New York takes this very seriously. It is incredibly, incredibly stressful on our families at this time. And there's nothing we want more than to restore some sense of common normalcy for our kids who've been through so much over the last few years."
Hochul: "It is phenomenally disruptive. It causes trauma among teachers and children and parents. It causes chaos, especially this week after what the nation had to witness - another mass shooting in a children's school in Nashville."
Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul hosted a meeting with New York State public safety and education leaders on recent "swatting" incidents.
B-ROLL of the meeting is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of the event is available here.
PHOTOS of the event will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:
Hello, everyone. I just conducted a meeting in here that was very productive with Education Commissioner, Betty Rosa, the head of State Police, Steve Nigrelli, and Andy Pallotta, who is the head of NYSUT.
The topic of the conversation were the 36 incidences that occurred yesterday - what are known as "swatting" incidences. And those who are not familiar with this, the word "swatting" comes from a desire of some actors, sometimes they're foreign, sometimes they're domestic, to basically make prank phone calls on a school with significant legitimacy, basically fooling the school into believing that there's an active shooter on site or about to appear.
And the idea of "swatting" comes around to the fact that they're trying to draw law enforcement into a situation, particularly SWAT teams, to respond. It is phenomenally disruptive. It causes trauma among teachers and children and parents. It causes chaos, especially this week after what the nation had to witness - another mass shooting in a children's school in Nashville. So, this has been a traumatic week for families across New York, particularly those in the concentrated area, the Hudson Valley area, Albany, and as well as parts of Western New York and the Adirondacks.
So, I wanted to find out how we're responding immediately in response to those phone calls. Our State Police went to over 226 schools, as well as encouraging and having law enforcement visit, as well as sheriffs, local law enforcement in the areas are not patrolled by the State Police. That occurred yesterday.
We also are convening a meeting this afternoon, another one to figure out our outreach to parents. But I want parents to know that we are taking every single incident very seriously. We treat it as if it's real, but the reality is, this is meant to disrupt and cause chaos in our school system - and indeed, society.
What I want them to also know - there are tools out there available. Something that we enacted last year, after the mass shooting in Buffalo, the red flag laws of which there now have been over 7,000 - 7,060 extreme risk orders of protection issued. So this is a tool that if someone sees or becomes aware of someone, either online or in person, that an individual could cause harm to themselves or others, they have an avenue. They can alert law enforcement, and someone can identify whether or not the person involved has access to guns at home, or whether they plan on purchasing guns and can stop that from happening.
This has been working successfully, but I want to make sure that all teachers and people in the education system are familiar with how this works, because I'd rather be in the business of preventing tragedies than solving crimes and mass shootings afterward. So that's just happened here with our team involved, as well as some individuals on Zoom. But it was productive.
And I want to reassure parents that the State of New York takes this very seriously. It is incredibly, incredibly stressful on our families at this time. And there's nothing we want more than to restore some sense of common normalcy for our kids who've been through so much over the last few years.