Governor Hochul: “We want to make sure that every single person doesn't question their own safety, their children's safety when they're going to school, walking down the street, going to their jobs because they deserve that. That's a basic right of every citizen is to be safe.”
Hochul: “That's what I'm committed to – finding the solutions, giving you the resources, giving you the support, giving you the expertise if you need it. Come for our training sessions regularly like you're doing here today.”
Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul delivered remarks at the New York State Association of Chiefs of Police and New York State Sheriff’s Association Leadership Conference.
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:
I'm so happy to be here this morning to basically just thank you. Thank you for dedicating your lives to the protection of fellow citizens, people you may know, people you may never know. And I'm so honored to be able to represent all of you. And as you know, we are in this together because as Governor of the State of New York, my number one priority is protecting people and communities and making sure you'll feel safe.
And I want to continue working with all of you. You are the boots on the ground. You are the ones who are interacting most directly. You're the ones who understand the challenges. And it's not one – we're a very large, diverse state. And we're seeing spikes of different crimes in different parts of the state. But having an organization like this that is absolutely on top of everything, the latest trends, what's going on, the need to deal with hate crimes as they're rising up on SUNY campuses, many of which are in your districts, dealing with the rise in car thefts, and I'll talk about that in a couple minutes. I mean, who would've thought that Rochester would have among the highest car thefts in America? We know all about that. The rise in retail theft, something that we're focused on. We have some announcements for our State of the State coming out on this initiative. So, there's always – and also cannabis enforcement. You has a session on this to talk about what we can do to stop the spread of illegal cannabis shops at a time we're trying to grow a legal, legitimate industry.
So, in addition to all the other issues you deal with, it's really good that you come here and learn the latest trends. And I want to thank Patrick Phelan, our Executive Director here, and he was asking how my husband was, every time I walk into a room of law enforcement, they don't care about me. They want to know how my husband's doing, because he was a federal prosecutor for 30 years. And worked in areas like Greece and 17 counties of upstate when he ultimately became the United States Attorney. And I hear comments about his relationships, how deep they were, even in the smallest of communities, and how important that was to him.
And also, I have a son who is a federal prosecutor as well. So, we look forward to continuing to work with you, and Patrick has been a great leader. And I also want to thank Chief Shawn Heubusch for his work. Batavia used to be in my old congressional district, so I know Batavia, Greece. This is my old turf. In fact, I represented a lot of Upstate New York and I also as a local town official, I had the privilege of interviewing candidates for the police department, our police department, our Chief of Police, Carmen Kesner is one we selected a few years ago, a superstar, I see him at Buffalo Bills games sometimes.
And also, conveying my values and what we want in our police officers and people that care deeply and are willing to make the tough decisions. And I know it's hard to recruit people to be in these positions now. There was a time when there was a lot of honor associated with this, and you felt proud walking down the street and something changed a few years ago where people felt at liberty to criticize and to condemn and to denigrate people who dedicate themselves to this dangerous profession. And I want to stop that. I want to let you know that we need you. Society does not exist without all of you keeping order and keeping people safe.
So, you need to hear that from me directly because others will say that I or my party represent different values and we do not. We are aligned 100 percent here. I've always felt close to this community and I'm focusing on making sure you have the resources you need. When we do something and say we need you to do more, for example, on the rise of hate crimes on college campuses, I'm not just saying go do that. We put money behind it, $50 million last week to help local law enforcement. When we're talking about asking you to do more with enforcement and dealing with the rise in gun cases, we put money into our GIVE communities. We put money behind our requests for more enforcement in different areas, but also, we're not leaving you alone.
We looked at, for example, the rise in car thefts in Rochester and Buffalo. What was going on there, we asked. Why is this? Well, it turned out, as you know, there was this TikTok phenomenon. Everybody was challenging each other to steal cars and scoring points if you could steal the most. And there was a rise of about 250 percent in thefts of cars in Rochester.
So, we went in there back in August and said, “Enough is enough. Let's have a plan.” We had a strategy. We put more money on the ground. We had diversion programs. We contacted all the owners of the Kias and Hyundais that were being stolen because it was so easy to. And when we went from 500 car thefts in Monroe County in June to 152 last week when I was there, I saw what progress looked like because we had local law enforcement that worked in partnership with our State Police and found the answers.
And that's what we're going to continue to do. You tell us where the problems are. If you need help, my State Police department is going to be nimble. They'll come in with license plate readers. They'll come in with any extra levels of enforcement. They'll literally walk the streets as we did in some of our Upstate communities that were seeing a huge spike in violent crimes last year.
But the good news is we've turned the corner when it comes down to our gun confiscations. They're up tremendously from what they've been just a couple years ago. I started a task force, not just interstate, but outside the state. I have 11 states now that are working with all of you to track illegal guns coming into our state. And the numbers are phenomenal, and how many we've confiscated, how many prosecutions there's been. So, we're making real progress.
But I will tell you, we have more work to do. I'm never satisfied. I'm never going to be satisfied. We want to make sure that every single person doesn't question their own safety, their children's safety when they're going to school, walking down the street, going to their jobs because they deserve that. That's a basic right of every citizen is to be safe.
And so, I want to just thank all of you. I can give you all kinds of statistics on crimes that are up, crimes that are down, but you know this because you're living it. But know that I'm committed 1,000 percent to working with you to solve these problems, to give people that sense of security.
I want to thank all of our sheriffs who are here. I just said, Sheriff Baxter here. We sat together many, many times talking about this. And I'm proud of the work that you've done as well, the sheriffs and the police departments, in fighting these specters of crime, whether it's the car thefts, it's the retail theft.
And I'm telling you, I'm working really hard. I just had a meeting with my team yesterday to come up with new ideas on retail theft because we can drive down murders and shootings, which is great – you do not want those numbers to be high. Those numbers are statistically lower than they've been since before the pandemic, which was historically low. That is all good. But if people walk into a store and they see someone sweeping the shelves feeling like they can get away with it, they need to know we've changed the laws. We've changed the laws so there can be, if it's a repeat offender, they're treated differently than they had been before we got those bail changes into the law just a couple months ago.
So, that's what I'm committed to – finding the solutions, giving you the resources, giving you the support, giving you the expertise if you need it. Come for our training sessions regularly like you're doing here today. But know, my friends, without you, the fabric of society unravels. I believe that to my core.
We need you. We need more to join your ranks. We need many more people who want to be recruits and join this noble profession. And I'll do whatever I can to make that become a reality. Thank you very much.