Watch as Mayor Adams, Commissioner Sewell and NYPD executives make a law enforcement announcement.

Well, attention guys, attention, good afternoon everyone, how are you very quiet today? I say, eh, waiting for all this good information, eh, okay, Marcia, keep it live, I'll have you later, welcome to a police square, here we are and everyone is gathered here. to hear very important information on public safety issues that affect all New Yorkers uh and joining us, of course, the honorable

mayor

of new york eric

adams

police

commissioner

keyshawn

sewell

first deputy

commissioner

edward caban chief of department ken corey chief of patrol jeff madry chief of crime control strategies michael lepetry assistant commissioner for legal affairs oleg sherniovsky oh and by the way before we do anything else we'll just stay on topic okay any other questions you may have that can be addressed unrelated to this after this press conference I will have people available for you.

We will not repeat questions as I said before. I will accept them if they are creative. Good afternoon everyone. You'll hear from Mayor Adams in a moment and then from our Chief Crime Control Strategist, Mike Lopetry. I am going to describe in detail the challenges we face in New York City every day. These are repeat offenders who

make

New Yorkers suffer unnecessarily every day as hard-working New Yorkers begin their day or night of work or school or simply enjoy what this city has to offer repeat offenders are planning or taking the opportunity to commit their upcoming theft, robbery, robbery or other crime, their efforts are increasingly aided by the fact that after the NYPD arrests them, the criminal justice system does not adequately hold them accountable for their actions.

Criminals face little to no repercussions despite committing crime after crime and the number of victims continues to rise. NYPD officers talk to these victims, we support them and we proudly work for them with all the resources we have, but for many of these victims. justice is elusive justice and equity go hand in hand public service has to work together on behalf of all the people we serve we are seeing tragedies every day on the streets of this city that we love and serve people are suffering and increasingly suffering unnecessarily becoming victims of repeat offenders who have demonstrated that their criminal behavior has no consequences, they see it because they have been through the system before, sometimes dozens and some even more than a hundred times, and are allowed to leave out the door back to the streets New York remains the only state that prevents judges from considering the threat to public safety when making custody determinations that do not serve the next innocent victim, do not serve our officers and do not serve the quality of life we ​​can and must do better we always say public safety is a shared responsibility it can't just be the NYPD we know how to do this we continue to address the needs of New Yorkers the NYPD is out there helping people to protect the public in their homes on the streets and in the transit system we need to do this work together with the right tools and with a focus on our victims

mayor

adams

thank you commissioner and thank you to the team of new york city police officers who They are doing the right thing for our city.

It is crucial that the police department and our administration have made a clear decision that we are going to give the information to the public and let the public

make

the decision on the four components of the criminal justice process. The police, the judges, the prosecutors, the legislators, have to do it. operate in unison public safety and justice as the highest priority of this administration, something that I decided to postulate and it is something that I am committed to doing as mayor. They are the alpha and omega of our north star, it moves us in one direction and The four components of public safety must do their job to reach that North Star.

Is the police department doing its job? Let me change that question mark to an exclamation point: Arrests have increased by 24 percent for a total of 109,000 arrests as of August 1 of this year. compared to the 87,794 arrests made during the same period in 2021, arrests for seven felonies increased by about 29 percent, firearms arrests are at their highest level in 27 years, the New York Police Department York has removed more than 4,300 illegal guns from our streets as of the end of July and murder and shooting numbers have decreased over the year. What doesn't work is the other three pieces say the difference in the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly. but expecting different results our criminal justice system is crazy it's dangerous it's harmful and it's destroying In the fabric of our city, time and time again our police officers make an arrest and then the person who is arrested for assault, serious assaults, robberies and weapons possession finds herself back on the street within days, if not hours, of being arrested and continues. commit more crimes in weeks, if not days, we want to make it clear that this is not simply a law reform action and we call that every piece of the criminal justice system must use the tools that are at their disposal and this is not attacking some of the necessary reforms we had is about a small number of people who are taking advantage of existing laws to endanger our city under the current law judges cannot consider whether someone is a threat to public safety by decide whether or not to hold them in custody, this is a big mistake, New York, as the commissioner stated, is the only state in the union that is not unified in terms of the power of public safety as a prerequisite to the way in which we judge these cases as a result of this crazy broken system, our recidivism. rates have skyrocketed and those who say the predicted wave of recidivism wouldn't happen in studies that claim to show the arrest rate for violent crimes hasn't changed since the reforms were passed.

I have a word for you, wrong, you are wrong. let's look at the real figures in 2022, 25 of the 1494 people arrested for theft committed another serious crime within 60 days within 60 days, that is, 393 people who did the same in 2017, however, only 7.7 committed another grand theft crime in 2022, the 60. The recidivism rate in days was 16.8 percent 310 people compared to just 6.5 percent in 2017. Overall, the rate is 20 125 people in 2022 compared to 10.3 percent in 2017. Look at that graph, look at that graph, robberies almost tripled grand thefts. look at the big numbers lost in order of small losses from the days of reforms to where we are now these numbers don't lie and it's just a small number of people who are abusing the fair call for reform when it comes to guns this year two thousand three hundred and eighty-six people were arrested with a weapon of those approximately 1,921 are on the street fighting with a weapon on the street arrests with weapons in custody 19.5 out of custody more than 80 percent more than 80 percent are out of custody How do you take a gun law seriously when overwhelming numbers are back on the streets after carrying a gun this year? 165 people were arrested on a second firearm charge.

Of those 82 are on the street, not one arrest for a weapon, but two arrests for a firearm. on the street in comparison in 2019 we arrested 80 people for a gun crime who had an open gun arrest and in 2021 the number was 259 in 2019 we arrested 20 people for a shooting who had a gun arrest in 2021 the number was 77 tripled between 2020 and 2121, all of New York is arrested and charged with a firearms crime, one in four was eventually arrested again or at least on at least one occasion after arrest, the numbers get even worse More when it comes to more serious crimes with numbers of repeat offenders in some categories having doubled or tripled since we implemented the call for reform and let's not forget the everyday New Yorkers who get lost in this whole conversation, I see I keep saying this over and over again. again, no one talks about the victims, no one talks about the The only thing we hear from victims is how do we ensure that those who commit crimes get justice.

How do we ensure that those who are victims of crime get justice? Can we have that conversation? And unlike other studies, our analysis does not artificially reduce the recidivism rate by counting in low numbers. -level of single offenders or analyzing short periods of time to determine if an individual reoffends. Our analysis focuses on the drivers of crime and the drivers of violence. Unfortunately, every crime, as I say time and time again, represents a person and is not just about the laws and I want to be clear that it is about every piece of our criminal justice system. 100 percent of our system must focus on keeping our children safe.

Children who have committed the most crimes should not be treated as adults. We said that over and over again, but repeat offenders need to be identified and prevented from harming other children. There is a real increase in the number of young people who are victims of some of these crimes. These are not the ninety percent of criminals who benefited from the reforms. It's about the small number who are using the reforms to continue inflicting violence in our city and what is our plan for them, that is the question that no one talks about, no one who makes the laws, those who are sitting on the bench and no one that they should aggressively prosecute these cases when they involve violent repeat offenders or offenders who have multiple serious arrests.

We have a situation that is almost unsustainable. This is unsustainable as a city and it makes us less safe and also undermines the morale of our communities. the police department that is sworn to protect you and I know about proper policing because I fought for proper policing as a police officer and a member of 100 blacks in law

enforcement

we could have safety and justice go together let's recognize the progress of the system that reforms our criminal justice system, but we have to be honest in recognizing how we go back and make the necessary modifications. As soon as we mention those modifications, people think that we are attacking the real reform that was needed and that is not what we are doing.

What we are doing is that we have a relatively small group of people who are repeat offenders and they are exploiting these reforms every day, They make us feel unsafe, they are taking advantage of a system that does not adequately take into account their criminal records, we recognize this and we must adapt to this, that is the only way we are going to deal with this crisis. New Yorkers demand a higher standard of safety and justice and we are ignoring New Yorkers' calls. I promise to listen to those calls as we govern the city. and while we protect this city, but we can't do it alone and that's what we're doing now, the NYPD is doing their job, they're doing their duty in the criminal justice system, every other part of that system must do his job. how do we move towards a safer and more productive citizen these repeat offenders are dangerous to our city, they are dangerous to our recovery and they are dangerous to the children and families of the city and we need to make that message clear, this is not a battle against those who They saw the need to reform a criminal justice system, this is a battle against those who are exploiting those reforms.

Our laser focus is on those repeat, dangerous and violent people, that is what we are focusing on and we cannot turn our backs on them. New Yorkers as we chase you allow Chief Michael Petty to come forward and give some details please good afternoon so I'd like to expand a little bit on what the mayor and the police commissioner talked about as it relates to drivers not only of crime in new york city but the drivers of violence in new york city and make no mistake about it, we focus on the worst of the worst and that is the

nypd

precision policing model and i will explain what that is deals with the precision policing model and how to do it in New York City, we have identified 716 people 716 people who are responsible for approximately thirty percent of the shooting incidents since the year 2021, so I will say that again there are approximately twenty-four hundred shooting incidents in New York City since 2021 716 have been responsible for 30 percent of those shooting incidents, we know who each of those individuals are that are under investigation, but you know what each of those individuals 54 per hundred almost 385 today have an open felony that is point zero zero eight percent of the new The population of New York City is responsible for 30 percent of the shootings in New York City over the last year and a half and It is importanttalk about the highest levels of firearms arrests in 27 years, but what's even more important is to talk about the quality of firearms arrests that the New York City police officer is turning over to prosecutors district attorneys and federal prosecutors throughout New York City and that is not a mistake, it is with a coordinated effort between those five district attorneys and two federal prosecutors that we are at the lowest levels. of prosecution decline when it comes to gun arrests in New York City, which is relentless, accurate, evidence-based policing, doing the most dangerous job in New York City when we're talking about seven arrests important, as the mayor alluded to the most in 21 years when we looked. who we are arresting we are arresting people who have been arrested sometimes hundreds of times since 2020 100 times we like to talk about credible messengers when we work with our social service providers when we work with violence against healing we are working on that Credible messenger to deliver the message to the crew member about stopping the violence.

Unfortunately, the credible messenger today in New York City is the crew member who was arrested with a gun yesterday and got out today. That's what he's telling the crew. Look at me, I can carry. a gun in New York City and today I'm going to come out and talk about it with the people or the people who still make up more than half of the shootings in New York City. I like to talk about some people who have a long arrest history so I'm going to talk about repeat offender number six and I just want everyone to know that all of the repeat offenders that I'm going to talk about today and it's not going to be all of them all have a long arrest warrant history. arrest 10 11 12 14 times they were supposed to return to court they never returned and most of the time the court has not even issued the warrant.

Repeat offender number six has a long arrest record dating back two decades to 2002. He has 71 arrests in his career. He is a commercial thief who targets commercial locations and continues to target the same locations. 57 5 7 arrests mainly for robbery. As of 2020, he has also been convicted of a felony, as most of these people have multiple felony convictions and multiple misdemeanor convictions. You know, what most affects the community of Manhattan and the Bronx who continue to be victims of this individual. I would like to talk about another individual this will be the number one repeat offender 101 professional arrests 15 convictions three for serious crimes two of those violent 10 convictions for misdemeanors 88 arrests since the first of January of twenty twenty we all know what the first of January of twenty was twenty is considered a grand larceny chronic repeat larceny offender has arrived at a place 20 times the same place 20 times and again we are talking about arrests here we have arrested that individual 100 times how many crimes do you think he really committed 200 300 thousand guess what is there a victim behind each one One of those crimes that we always talk about, a big loss in the car, right, it is a crime that we always talk about.

You are not only victimizing the owner of that vehicle. What happens to the family that depends on that vehicle to get to school and work? to go to the store we forget about that, the NYPD doesn't do it because we arrested Grand The individuals gave them an appearance ticket at the desk, they left the police station and guess what, two blocks away they stole another one. vehicle these are real life stories this guy I'm talking about repeat offender number one I'm going to get to 10 but I'm still on one he has 14 failures to show up and guess what he's walking the streets of New York City today he's probably committing another crime as we speak and we will arrest them for it repeat offender number 10 has 63 arrests including assault on a police officer as yesterday we had another assault on a traffic police officer five time convicted felon five time convicted felon 13 misdemeanor convictions 39 arrests since January 2000 he's a gla repeat offender he's a crime spree and guess what he's walking the streets of New York City today probably committing another crime right now and hopefully he's in handcuffs so again these are just Some of the highlights what the mayor and the police commissioner were talking about, but we are focused on accuracy and will continue to relentlessly arrest people who prey on the most vulnerable New Yorkers.

Thank you. Okay, we'll answer a couple of questions. Mayor, have you brought this data to the attention of uh d.a brad? I had a conversation with the rising member uh carl hasty uh who raised his concerns and I shared the information with him, we will deliver this information and more information to him. I told him I would give him information based on our studies. My lead attorney and Deputy Mayor Banks met repeatedly with the district attorneys and we will show them this data and we will continue to interact and deliver this package to them as well. we want people to see exactly what we're talking about, there was only one study and this is something that a lot of people don't understand, there was a study published that says only two percent of people are repeat offenders, yes, but two. percentage of what numbers, if you have two percent of thousands of people, you are reaching a substantial number of repeat offenders, you heard the number that chief petry said, we are talking about a small handful of New Yorkers who are repeat offenders and that is what We continue to explain to the prosecutors, our prosecutors, our legislators, that it is not about destroying the reforms that were implemented, but about going after that small number of people who are exploiting those reforms and are dangerous and what are they asking of their parties? specific to the legislation?

We ask them to modify and we put it in writing and we will continue to communicate it with a proposal to the governor and the legislators to allow the judiciary to interact. and have a consideration of dangerousness and establish a bond to answer that question directly. Yes, we've had several conversations about that, but I think we're making a big mistake as an audience, particularly with the way this is portrayed. I think there are three areas areas where we are making a mistake number one that we are attacking reforms that were implemented reports much needed reforms that we are not uh some of the reforms that were implemented were something that was specifically needed come on After the dangerous repeat offenders , particularly around gun ownership and gun violence number two, it's not just what happened in Albany, but what the other parts of the criminal justice systems are doing by not using the tools that are currently available and to It's very important and lastly, I think it's crucial that we're trying to distort this conversation by saying that it's about going after kids who commit crimes.

That's not what this conversation is about. This conversation is about the small number of dangerous people who are repeat offenders. who have decided that we can do whatever we want in this city and that nothing is going to happen to us. No, I believe Governor Hokule and I are aligned on public safety issues. We have been completely aligned that public safety is important. despite what people are tempted to say, lee zeldin and i are lying on the hip, we must have a broken hip because he clearly doesn't get it. he had voted against all the responsible gun lawyers in congress, he voted against. that we are not aligned, I agree with governor hokul on this issue, he is who I support, he is who I support and he is who I believe he is a true partner. his belief that judges have the tools they need, yes, they have tools they need.

They need to not be used, they need to use all their tools, but they also need additional tools in the process. No, I think that is the case and that is why we are going to continue to not only educate the judicial system, but we must also educate our legislators so that they can fully understand what we are saying and everyone who is involved in this process. Judges have tools they are not using, but they need more tools, like public safety, if public safety is in danger. about someone's actions, judges must choose that 49 other states currently have to make sure that person is not dangerous to our communities, then it is that judges can keep people in jail based on their perception of their dangerousness and second, why do this now when the legislature is not in session and Governor Hope was facing a difficult election?

Well, first, we're not going to do this now. I've said it over and over, over and over again, for anyone who says Eric started it. Talking about this conversation now is simply false. The numbers continue to trend in the wrong direction and continue to show that these repeat offenders are coming to light. It would be irresponsible of me to ignore what is happening right now on our streets every day. Every day we see these dangerous people committing these actions repeatedly, so this is not a new conversation for me, it's a conversation I've had over and over again and dangerousness is important, but we also want to look at several other aspects of allowing dangerous people to continue. carrying out these dangerous actions that we are seeing on our streets, but I am going to say this over and over again, I hope it resonates.

It's not just about Albany, it's about prosecutors prosecuting, it's about our criminal justice system. going bottleless it's about the judges making the right decisions we keep coming back to albany no matter how many times i say this we keep talking only about albany don't let others get away with not doing their job they should use all their tools that are part of the criminal justice system the way the police are doing their job yeah I don't differ with that uh that's how things happen you know every major change we've had in American history came from People wouldn't stay in silence if I had had a press conference while I was running and never spoken about this again.

We wouldn't have gone back to Albany and looked at criminal justice reforms. It was that constant drumbeat and that's how you change. it's done we must continually educate the public there is nothing wrong with Miss Jones who was robbed there is something wrong with the person who robbed her there is nothing wrong with the 11 year old girl who was shot in the head just trying to move around our streets something is wrong with the person who shot them so what i have to do is use the full extent of my powers one extent is my police department the city police department is doing the rest we have to hide let's get the guns out from the streets so I have to use this bullpit to talk about these issues and educate the public so that they can communicate with their legislators to align with them and think about this Marcia yesterday we had a debate in Congress that sounds like everyone who was debating in that debate.

I spoke about the issues that I'm saying right now, they weren't saying it before judges or progressive judges or whatever, so we have to change, that's outside my scope of responsibility, but what is within my scope is a responsibility of the judges that I appoint and myself. I will make sure that the decision I make in appointing judges is on behalf of the people of this city, that our city is safe, okay, let's take some more. How many of those arrests started in January and are the gun arrests? It is always a bailable offense when it comes to five in a car with a gun.

I'll just tell you this, we're in more incidents, more gun arrest incidents than we've ever had, so we're arresting more people with a gun than five in a car with a gun and the data I provided is all gun arrests, so I would include everyone who was inside that car with a gun, but I would like to say it again, we are at the highest number of incidents, which shows you know where the laser was focused on the people who carry the guns and how many, and again now you're moving away from gun arrests and you're talking about everything being fine, so the vast majority of the worst of the worst that I talked about they were arrested for felonies that are not eligible for bail, so only one burglary subdivision would be eligible for the hood or another burglary subdivision would not be as far as grand larceny grant lost any of a small claim warrant that are not eligible for bail.

There are crimes, but that's not exactly how you're explaining it. I could explain it to you offline. It has to be, you know, a violent felony. A serious crime. Keep it up. There is more to empower judges to use public safety as a gunner's weapon. arresting crimes involving minors staying in criminal court is very important and the team will list you some other specific modifications that we are requesting, but that is a big part ofthis conversation: a judge has a person in front of them who has invented their They care that they are going to be a criminal, a violent criminal, that judge should have a determination about public safety, that we are returning that criminal to our society, believe me , I want you to know, sometimes I don't know why we hire lawyers.

You know, they said we can't show names and faces, so I have to follow the rules, but people in the public need to see the names and faces of these people who are repeatedly creating violence in our community, but I'm restricted by the rules of my advice, but people who are imprisoned in writers also have ways of committing crimes surrounded by many other people who have many tools and resources to commit crimes. Do you think simply locking people up will prevent crime from happening? actually, just empowering people to have more. Do I think just locking people up is part of public safety?

He is sending a message. You know, as a boss. The boss just talked about the five people in the car with the gun. You know that's a new business. I carry a gun I'm with five people let me leave the gun on the ground so they can't point it at any of us you know, that's the new business that's happening let me let the young man carry the gun and I'm an adult this is what what we did during drug trafficking and that is why our objective is to create the right climate. I will go. We don't want to lock up all New Yorkers.

We don't lock up dangerous ones. people that are among us, you know, you have to work very hard to get to rikens right now, let's be clear on that because of what we have done to you, if you are in rikers right now, you did not steal an apple, you did not. uh you just committed an innocent crime if you were on rikers you did something really bad that's what happened uh skylar Bloomberg so we're here talking about crime and you know the public perception doesn't make it look like the city Do you know it's really safe?

But a Bloomberg analysis found that digital and print crime media has increased by 800 per month since he took office and during de Blasio's eight years it was 130, so the question is: do you know with these press conferences ? you feel like you're making the problem worse well if you were part of their analysis if they were doing analysis with me while i took office if you were to do an analysis of how many press conferences i did about the crime and then see how many stories the media wrote without me doing anything else about crime, then the real question is whether the media drives the narrative, not my drive in the narrative.

I do press conferences every day, sometimes twice a day and the topics of my press conferences have nothing to do with crime, putting the ferry system in its place, that's not a crime, what I did yesterday with heating and air conditioning, that's not a crime, so it's not Eric driving the crime, the real analysis should be, let's see. how many press conferences did eric give about crime, which is an important issue for our city, but look at how much coverage the media is doing about crime, do an analysis of how many front page stories talked about crime in this city, so , what is driving the narrative?

Is it Eric or is it Bloomberg's lp, okay and then, great question, crisis management team, what are we doing with probation with juvenile offenders and how do we partner them with almost mentoring, what are we doing around detecting Dyslexia, you heard me. I say over and over again almost 40 of the inmates are dyslexic uh what we are doing was with employment 100,000 for the first time in history 100,000 summer youth in jobs jobs keeping our schools open one hundred ten thousand summer increasing we do not close the In the schools there was a waiting list to do it.

What are we doing around the paid internship program for youth living in shelters? If you grow up in a shelter, you are less likely to graduate from high school if you don't educate. you're going to jail, there has not been an administration that has been more progressive with the way upstream treats crime prevention than this administration, but we have to intervene right now, someone is holding up with a gun, I can't try. convince him that you know you shouldn't steal from this person, the police have to do their job, so yes, we are a great prevention group, my administration is a great prevention group and we have some great programs that we have implemented and are going to implement.

We are going to continue to erode what is creating some of these young people to be criminals. Thanks, what's up? Yes, we're saying this again and I'm glad you raised that question. This is not an attack on fair reforms. It is an attack on those who are exploiting the reforms, so leave what is in place for 90 of the people, those first-time offenders made a serious mistake. I know what it's like to make a big mistake as a child. I made serious mistakes, so let's go. Instead, let's now focus on those 10 percent that have made a decision, they're going to be repeat offenders, that's all we're saying, let's modify what they've done, let's do an analysis and we've done this before.

Let's do an analysis of what has been done and go after those who are exploiting the fair reforms that were implemented. We did this with sex offenders. We went back and said, listen, these are people who are exploiting what you're suggesting. This is so we have to get it right, we are talking about public safety and when you talk about public safety and justice, there is no shame in saying, let's modify to get what we want, no one disputes the numbers that we have. We have shown that there are a substantial number of repeat offenders who have decided that they are going to commit crimes and that they are going to create crimes and carry out crimes in our city.

These are the numbers before we took this position that we reached. We talked to our statisticians and said: show us where we are losing this battle. Are we losing this battle because our police are not working? They said no, we have an increase in arrests for dangerous felonies. We have an increase in gun crime. We have an increase in everyone. of these areas here is where we are losing this battle and that is why we are here and that is why we are going to continue to move forward on this issue, okay, thank you all, thank you the brush.