Governor Hochul: “And we have made our schools and our communities safer as a result of this. It's an 813 percent increase. I wish other states would do the same. Every other state should be doing this, and we call on them to follow our lead. But also, I want to talk about the fact that we have had such a statewide decrease in shootings and murders.”
Hochul: “So, gun violence, other crimes, we are laser focused on this here in the State of New York because it comes down to that sense of personal security that every single person is entitled to. You should be able to walk your streets, or go to your church, or your synagogue, or your mosque, and be free from all crimes, all threats. Whether it's antisemitism, Islamophobia, whatever your problem is, I'm sorry New Yorkers, it's time to start treating each other with care and compassion. That's who we are.”
Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced sustained, significant progress against gun violence and vehicle thefts in the city of Rochester. Federal, state, and local law enforcement partnerships have produced results, including a 17 percent decrease in shooting incidents with injury (217 vs. 261) and a 30 percent reduction in the number of individuals killed by gun violence (39 vs. 56) from January 1, through October 22, 2023, vs. the same time last year. Vehicle thefts in the city declined 38 percent when comparing thefts in June, which was the month with the most thefts reported so far in 2023, to those reported in August, the month with the second-fewest thefts reported this year. Governor Hochul also urged Rochester and Finger Lake residents to attend software update clinics hosted by Hyundai in Rochester this month to further protect their vehicles.
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 are available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:
The most basic of all rights is the right to be safe. And here in New York, as the Governor, that is my absolute highest priority. I look around this room, I see so many people who've dedicated themselves to ensuring the safety of their fellow New Yorkers and making sure that our communities are free from crime. And I want to thank the people who've dedicated themselves to this cause.
And starting at the very top, we have representation out of Washington from President Biden's administration. I want to thank Steven Dettelbach for being here today as the Head of the ATF for the entire country, but also a former United States Attorney as well. Let's give him a huge round of applause for coming. Thank you. My partner in local government, Adam Bello. Extraordinary, extraordinary job – we've been through so much together. And I want to thank you for your amazing leadership of this great county. Let's give a round of applause to Adam Bello. And our Sheriff, Todd Baxter, who's been a partner in our efforts to get more guns off the street and make sure our neighborhoods and our communities are safe as well. Sheriff Todd Baxter. In representation, my partners in Albany. Nice to see you in the off-season here. Harry Bronson, Jen Lunsford, and Sarah Clark. Let's give them a round of applause as well. I don't know if our U.S. Attorney, Trini Ross, is here. Have I seen Trini? Thank you for your work protecting a large region, 17 counties. And so, we appreciate your attendance here today.
And of course, Gary Mervis, and you and Wendy were extraordinary individuals who were beset with personal tragedy and the loss of your little beloved daughter, Teddi, when she was nine years old. But instead of grieving their entire lives and bemoaning what befell you, you actually turned that into a powerful force to help other families who know the loneliness and the stress of having a child with a disease. And what you did with Camp Good Days, and I visited, it's a magical place. It's a place of healing and recovery and so much love. Thank you, Gary and Wendy, for what you did for all those families over many, many years. Let's give them a round of applause.
What we celebrate here today is a quarter of a century ago, Gary said, “Yes.” You said yes to the judge when he asked you if you could use your stature in the community and your knowledge and your passion to implement a program, Project Exile. And again, we are proud that we are the second community in the entire country to embrace this because it makes sense. The coordination makes sense. Finding alternatives for young people to do something other than join a gang and get involved in gun violence makes sense. But a lot of places were not stepping up, but Rochester did. And that is part of the legacy of the people of 25 years ago all the way through today.
It's also given me an opportunity to think about the people, the U.S. attorneys who've worked on this, and I absolutely know one very well. My husband, Bill, would always say, “I have to go to Rochester and meet with Gary Mervis. We're working on Project Exile.” I was well familiar with this. And I want to thank him for his service, protecting us for many years as a United States Attorney, but 30 years of dedication to law enforcement and the United States Attorney's Office. So, I'm going to use a personal point of privilege and ask you to welcome our first First Gentleman in the entire state's history, Bill Hochul.
The ATF has been an amazing partner. I mean, just in the short time that the Director has been in his position, we've had conversations. I think his very first day on the job, we got together and spoke about what we're doing here in New York State and how I knew from living with a prosecutor and understanding from local government, the threats that communities face, they need extra help, and we don't need to have these turf battles and these silos that have been a barrier for so long. So, projects like this and our work establishing the Interstate Gun Interdiction Task Force when we brought in not just other partners across the state, but also other states. No other part of our country has done that. We started with eightthen nine, now we have 11 states, all contiguous, that are sharing information in real-time on how we can break the iron pipeline that is bringing illegal guns to our communities. And we are having incredible success. And I'm really proud of that and the work that we can do with federal partners like the ATF.
We've approached it from three points. First of all, as I mentioned, strategic partnerships with state, local and federal partners. But I do want to give a special shout-out to the state partners. Our State Police force is second to none in this country. They are dedicated. They are hardworking. When I walk into a place like Cornell, just on Monday morning and was greeted by the captain there who was so compassionate when we sat down with those students, those Jewish students were threatened, their lives were literally threatened. And our captain walked in there, someone who was actually Jewish and has family in Israel who are in harm's way, sat down with a sense of empathy and made those kids feel better. That's what our State Police does. They're on the ground, they're out there developing relationships communities. And I want to give a special round of applause to all the members of the State Police who are here with us today.
But it's not just building relationships, breaking down barriers, but it's also the policies and the laws that often have to be changed or improved, enhanced, implemented. And we work really hard – so think about something like ghost guns. You never even heard of them a few years ago, but people could literally mail order a gun to their house, build it and go out and kill somebody.
So, what we did was we signed a law criminalizing this in November 2021. I think I had been Governor two months and I knew how important this would be. And the ATF also announced rules on this. The Supreme Court just two weeks ago upheld the ATF gun rule, which is important, and the litigation is proceeding. Because every time we try to do something, somebody slaps us with a lawsuit and tries to stop it. But why would anybody in their right mind think it's okay to be able to assemble a gun in your house and go out and kill people? That's what we're talking about, it's common sense here. So, we're challenged, but I also believe that we'll be successful. As I mentioned, we established the Interstate Gun Task Force to get guns off the streets.
Another thing we did, and all of you felt this because it was just down the road in Buffalo. After that mass murder of 10 innocent New Yorkers, just shopping in a grocery store on a Saturday morning. We realized that there were signs that our Red Flag Laws were on the books but could be enhanced. And as a result, we made our gun laws tougher. We had changed the Red Flag Laws, the extreme risk orders of protection. Back to that month, May of 2022, there had been 1,400 orders of protection sought. These are people who've shown behavior that indicates they could do harm to themselves or do harm to others – 1,400. Big number, right?
We just had 13,000 recorded now because we changed the law, told law enforcement, told our State Police that these are the signs, when you see them, you go get it. Don't ask questions, we'll figure it out later, but you need to make sure that you go to a judge, that you take steps, you find out a way to make sure that someone who could get a gun in their hands and go kill an individual or a group of individuals is stopped before it happens.
And we have made our schools and our communities safer as a result of this. It's an 813 percent increase. I wish other states would do the same. Every other state should be doing this, and we call on them to follow our lead. But also, I want to talk about the fact that we have had such a statewide decrease in shootings and murders. This is a frightening time, during the pandemic and immediately in the aftermath for some reason, and sociologists can figure this out and maybe some of you have opinions on this, but everything seemed to just come to a crashing halt, normalcy, people having respect, people not committing crimes, that all broke down. The social fabric broke down, and people were committing crimes with abandon – and including shootings. And so, we have fought hard against this.
Across the State of New York and the GIVE jurisdictions, where we give extra resources like Rochester, there's been a 35 percent decrease in shootings and a 30 percent decrease in fatal shootings as well. So that's something we're proud of. But let's zero in on Rochester. Good news here in Rochester. Murders are down 28 percent over last year. Violent crime down 8 percent. And this community has really stepped up. I was just here in September, recognizing the fact that, not something we're real excited about, but Rochester had one of the highest statistics related to car thefts in the nation.
But this group of people said, “We have to stop this.” We pulled together, we gave state resources, we used state opportunity to bring in more boots on the ground, more law enforcement, the license plate readers, drone surveillance. I mean, we treated this like it was a war zone. We were going to stop people from stealing cars. Let me tell you this, what offended me the most, these cars are old Kias and Hyundais. These were people who don't have a lot of money. This could be their only vehicle, driving a ten-year-old Kia to get to their job as a grocery store clerk. You take away that vehicle, you've taken away their livelihood.
They don't have an extra Lexus in the garage that they can pull out when their Kia is stolen, okay, let's just deal with the facts here. They preyed on people who are vulnerable in our community, and we said no more. Everybody in the Rochester community, our County Executive, our Chief of Police, our District Attorney, our Sheriff, everybody pulled together and worked with us.
At the time, car thefts, when I started noticing the statistics in the spring, summer, 829 percent. Last June, 500 cars were stolen. I literally went to the pound. I saw the cars that had been broken into. I saw how you could so easily, because of a design flaw in the manufacturer, take your charger for a cell phone, put it in the ignition, and turn on one of these vehicles. So, we went after the companies, we went after the owners, we told them they need to be wary. 500 car thefts in June, October numbers, 152. That's what I call progress. That's how we start helping people feel safer. So, gun violence, other crimes, we are laser-focused on this here in the State of New York because it comes down to that sense of personal security that every single person is entitled to.
You should be able to walk your streets, or go to your church, or your synagogue, or your mosque, and be free from all crimes, all threats. Whether it's antisemitism, Islamophobia, whatever your problem is, I'm sorry New Yorkers, it's time to start treating each other with care and compassion. That's who we are. So,we are going to be tough. We'll be prosecuting individuals who perpetrate threats on anyone, carry guns, or even on a college campus. You threaten the lives of other students, there will be consequences. I told those students on Monday morning that we will catch this person. And we will let the world know.
You dare do this in the State of New York, there are consequences. And you will pay the price. And that's just what happened. I want to thank our partners also at the FBI and our State Police and the Joint Terrorism Task Force for that arrest just yesterday. So that's what our law enforcement is doing. I'm proud of them. They are working hard. They are dedicated. And for that, we all can sleep better at night. Thank you very much.