Mayor Eric Adams Makes Public Safety-Related Announcement with NYPD Commissioner Sewell

oh, okay, so let me know guys, take care of yourselves, good afternoon everyone, how are you very quiet today? I say, eh, waiting for all this good information, eh, okay, Marcia, stay alive, 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 and, of course, we are joined by 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 head of crime control strategies michael lepetry assistant commissioner of 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 un

related

to this later of this press conference I will have people available for you.

We will not repeat questions as I said before. I will answer 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, Michael Petry. 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 needlessly every day as hard-working New Yorkers begin their day or night of work or school or simply enjoy what it means. the city has to offer repeat criminals are planning or taking advantage of the opportunity to commit their next burglary, robbery, robbery or other crime, their efforts are increasingly aided by the fact that after the New York Police Department arrests them, the criminal justice system does not adequately hold them accountable for their actions.

These criminals face little to no repercussions despite committing crime after crime and the number of victims continues to rise. Your 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. justice for victims 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 more and more are suffering. unnecessarily becoming victims of repeat offenders who have proven 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 walk out the door back to the streets of 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 we must do better we always say that public safety is a shared responsibility it can't be just the

nypd

we know how to do this we continue to serve the needs of new yorkers the

nypd

is helping people protect the public in their homes in the on the streets and in the transportation 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 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 All 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 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 for how we try these cases As a result of this insanely 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 numbers in 2022, 25 of the 1494 people arrested for theft committed another serious crime within 60 days within 60 days, that is, 393 people did the same in 2017, however, only 7.7 per percent committed another grand theft crime in 2022. The 60-day recidivism rate was 16.8 percent 310 people compared to just 6.5 percent in 2017. For big misses in the order, the rate is of 20,125 people in 2022 compared to 10.3 percent in 2017. look at that graph look at that graph robberies almost tripled grand theft look at the numbers lost in the order of the small laws, so since the days of the reforms to where we are now these numbers do not lie and it is only a small number of people who are abusing the righteous call for reform and then when it comes to firearms this year two thousand three hundred and eighty-six people were arrested with a firearm those approximately 1921 are on the street rested with a gun on the street arrest for weapon in custody 19.5 out of custody more than 80 percent more than 80 percent are out in custody, how can a law on weapons when an overwhelming number of people are back on the streets after carrying a gun this year, 165 people were arrested with a second firearm charge, of those 82 are on the streets, not one gun arrest, but two firearm arrests?

Back on the street in comparison, in 2019 we arrested 80 people for a gun crime who had an open firearm arrest and in 2021 the number was 259 in 2019 we arrested 20 people for a shooting who had an arrest by firearm in 2021 the number was 77 tripled between 2020 and 2121 all New Yorkers are arrested and charged with a firearm crime one in four was eventually arrested again or at least in at least one occasion after arrest the numbers get even worse when it comes to more serious crimes with repeat offenders The numbers in some categories have not doubled or tripled since we implemented the call for reform and let's not forget the New Yorkers who get lost every day in this whole conversation.

I see I keep saying this over and over again. Nobody talks about the victims. Nobody. is talking about the victims, all we hear is how we ensure 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, does our analysis not artificially reduce the recidivism rate? By counting single low-level offenders or by looking at short periods of time to determine if an individual reoffends, our analysis focuses on the drivers of crime and the drivers of violence, unfortunately each crime, as I say time and time again, represents a person. and it's not just about the laws and I want to be clear that it's 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 like Adults we said that over and over again, but repeat offenders should be identified and removed from harming other children. There is a real increase in the number of young people who are victims of some of these crimes. It is not about 90 of the criminals who benefited. the reforms are about the small number that are using the reforms to continue to inflict 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, no one who is sitting on the bench and no one who should aggressively prosecute these cases when it comes to violent repeat offenders or criminals who have multiple serious arrests, we have a situation that is almost unsustainable, this is unsustainable as a city and that

makes

us less safe, it also undermines the morale of our communities and the police department 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 they 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 believe that we are attacking the real reform that was necessary and that is not what we are doing. We have a relatively small group of people who are repeat offenders and they are exploiting these reforms every day. They are making us 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 York demands a higher standard of safety and justice and we are ignoring the calls of New Yorkers.

I promise to listen to those calls as soon as possible. We rule the city and we protect the city, but we can't do it alone and that's what we're doing now. The NYPD is doing their job. They are fulfilling their obligation in the criminal justice system. All the other parts of that system must do their job, that is how 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 this city and we need to make that message clear.

This is not a battle against those who 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 offenders, dangerous and violent people. That's what we're focusing on and we can't turn our backs on New Yorkers while we go after them, let Chief Michael Petrie come up and give some details please, good afternoon, so I'd like to expand a little on what spoke the mayor and the police commissioner when it comes to The drivers of not only crime in New York City but also violence in New York City and make no mistake, we focus on the worst of the worst and that's the NYPD precision policing model and I'll explain what the precision policing model is.

What it is and how we do it in New York City, we have identified 716 people 716 people who are responsible for approximately 30 percent of the shooting incidents since 2021. So I will say that again there are approximately 2,400 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 percent almost 385 today they have an open felony that is point zero zero eight percent of the population of new york city is responsible for thethirty percent of shootings in new york city over the last year and a half and it's important to talk about the highest levels of gun arrests in 27 years, but what's even more important to talk about the quality of the firearms arrests that the New York City police officer is handing over to district attorneys and federal prosecutors throughout New York City and that, not by mistake, 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 that it is relentless and precise evidence-based policing that does the most dangerous job in New York City when we talk about seven major arrests, as the mayor alluded to the most in 21 years when look at 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 to cure the violence that we are working on that credible messenger to deliver the message to the crew member about stopping the violence, well, unfortunately, the credible messenger today in the city of New York is the crew member who was arrested with a gun yesterday, who came out today and who tells the crew, well, look at me, I can carry a gun in New York City and today I'm going out to talk to the people about it. people or people who continue to account for 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 every repeat offender I'm going to talk about today and it won't be all of them, they all have a long arrest history. 11 12 14 times they were supposed to come back to court, they never came back and most of the time there is no warrant even repeat offender number six has a long arrest record dating back two decades to 2002. He has 71 arrests in his carrer. He is a commercial thief who targets commercial locations and continues to target the same locations fifty seven five seven arrests primarily for theft since twenty twenty.

He is also a convicted felon, as most of these individuals 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 that I would like to talk about. another individual, this will be the number one repeat offender 101 professional arrests 15 convictions three for felonies two of those violent 10 convictions for misdemeanors 88 arrests since January 1, 2020 we all know what January 1, 2020 was he is considered a chronic petit larceny, a repeat grand larceny who hit a place 20 times the same place 20 times and again we are talking about arrests here we have arrested that guy 100 times how many crimes do you think he really committed 200 300 thousand guess what there is a victim behind it of each of those crimes We always talk about a big loss in the car, right, it's a crime we always talk about.

You are not only victimizing the owner of that vehicle. What about the family that depends on that vehicle to go to school, go to work, go to the store we forget about that, the NYPD doesn't because we arrested Grand The individuals gave them a ticket of presentation. They left the police station and guess what, two blocks away, they stole another 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 at one he has 14 failures to show up and guess what he's walking the streets of New York City today probably committing another crime as we speak and we'll arrest them so repeat offender number 10 has 63 arrests, including assault on a police officer, like 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.

That's a gla repeat offender, it'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 in handcuffs, so again, these are just some of the highlights that the mayor and the police commissioner were talking about, but we are focused on precision 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, jeremy, Mr. Mayor. you reported this data to uh d.a brad. I had a conversation with a member of the Senate, Carl History, who raised his concerns and I shared the information with him.

We are going to give you this information and more information. I told him I will hand her over. about some information based on our studies, my lead attorney and Deputy Mayor Banks we met repeatedly with the district attorneys and showed them this data and we continue to interact and we will deliver this package to them we also want people to see exactly what we are talking about was just one study and this is something that many people do not understand. A study was published that says well, only two percent of people are repeat offenders, yes, but two percent of the numbers you have.

If you have two percent of thousands of people, you're reaching a substantial number of repeat offenders, you heard a number that Chief Petry said, we're talking about a small handful of New Yorkers who are repeat offenders and that's what we keep explaining to prosecutors. , our prosecutors, our legislators, that it is not about destroying the reforms that were implemented, but about pursuing that small number of people who are exploiting those reforms and are dangerous, there are specific parts. of the legislation that we are asking you to modify and we put it in writing and we are going to continue to communicate that to you following that Mr.

Mayor, have you presented a specific proposal to the governor and the legislators to allow the The judiciary must interact and have a round of dangerousness consideration 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 There are three areas areas where we are making a mistake number one that we are attacking reforms that were implemented much needed reports reforms that we are not uh some of the reforms that were implemented were something that was needed we are specifically going after the dangerous repeat offenders, particularly around gun ownership and gun violence number two, it's not just what happened in Albany, it's what the other parts of the criminal justice systems are doing, the lack of use of the tools that are currently available, etc.

That's very important, and lastly, I think it's crucial that we're trying to distort this conversation 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 repeat themselves. repeat offenders who have decided that we can do whatever we want in this city and that nothing is going to happen to the tools that they need in Am

eric

a right now, they are the ones that are not doing their job, no, I think Governor Hochul and i are aligned on public safety issues we have been totally aligned on public safety is important despite what people try to say lee zeldin and i are lying on the hip we must have a broken hip because he clearly doesn't understand if you voted against all the responsible gun laws in congress you voted against we are not aligned i agree with governor hokul on this issue it's who i support who i support and who i think is a real share your belief that judges have the tools they need yes they have the tools they need they are not using them they need to use all their tools but they also need additional tools in the process no I think that's the case and that's why We are going to continue to not only educate the judicial system, but we need to educate our legislators so 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 do need more tools, like public safety, if public safety is in danger based on someone's actions, judges must choose that 49 other states currently have to make sure that person is not dangerous to our Albany, then The communities must inform the judges. be able to keep people in jail based on their perception of their dangerousness and secondly, why do this now when the legislature is not in session and Governor Hope was facing a tough electoral battle against someone who has done This is your main question, you know, first?

We're not going to do this now. I've said it over and over, over and over again, so for anyone who says Eric started talking about this conversation now, that's simply not true. The numbers continue to trend in the wrong direction. 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 It's a new conversation for me. This is a conversation that 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 to carry out these dangerous actions that we're seeing on our streets, but I.

I'm 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 decompressing, it's about judges making the right decisions, we keep coming back to Albany no matter how many times we do it. Say this, we are still only talking 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 police are doing policing, they are doing his job. Yes, no, I don't agree with that, that's how things happen.

You know, every major change we've had in American history came from people who wouldn't stay silent if I just had a press conference when I was running and never talked about it again. We wouldn't have gone back to Albany and looked at criminal justice reforms. It was that constant drumbeat and that's how change is made. 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 she was just trying to navigate our streets something is wrong with the person who shot them so what I should do is use all my powers one reach is my police department, the city police department is doing the rest, we have to hide, we are taking guns off the streets, so I have to use this bullpit to talk about these issues and educate the public to that they can communicate with their legislators, be aligned with them and think about this martial law.

Yesterday we had a debate in Congress. It sounds like everyone who was debating that debate was talking about the issues I'm talking about right now, they weren't saying it before progressive justices or judges. or whatever we have to change, that is outside my scope of responsibility, but what is within my scope of responsibility of the judges that I appoint and I will make sure that the decision that I make in appointing judges is on behalf of the people of this city that our city is safe, okay, let's take a few more, for example, how many of those arrests started in January?

Is the person always a bailable offense regarding five in a car with a gun? I'll just tell you this: We're in more incidents, more gun arrest incidents than ever before, so we're arresting more people with a gun than five in a car with a gun and the data I provided is all guns. arrests, so that would include everyone who was inside that car with a gun, but I would like to say it again, we are in the highest number of incidents, which shows that you know we are laser focused on the people who are carrying the weapons, how many times now?

We're moving away from gun arrests and you're talking about all of them, okay, so the vast majority of the worst of the worst that I talked about were arrested for non-bailable felonies, so just a subdivision of theft would be Bell-eligible or another subdivision of theft would not be as far as grand theft grand loss and even warrant petty claims those are non-bailable 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, move forward, there's more to empowering judges to use thepublic safety as an aspect, gunner, arrest with weapons, 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 are a big part of this conversation, a judge has a person in front of him who has decided that he is 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 that sometimes I don't know why we hire lawyers.

You know, they said we can't show names and faces, so I have to comply. the rules, but people in the public need to see the names and faces of these individuals who are repeatedly creating violence in our community, but I am restricted by the rules of my lawyers, who is it for, what was the question, uh, but the people who are incarcerated at Rikers. We 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 stop crime or could it actually empower people to have more people with crime committing skills at their fingertips I didn't quite understand do I think just locking people up is part of the public safety is sending a message?

You know, as a boss, the boss just talked about the five people in the car with a gun, you know, that's new business. now you know, hey, I carry a gun, I'm with five people, let me put the gun on the ground so they can't point it at any of us, you know, that's the new hustle that's going on, let me put it down. the young man carries the gun and I am an adult, this is what we did during the drug trade, so our goal is to create the right climate. I will go. We don't want to lock up all New Yorkers.

Lock up the dangerous people that are among us, you know, they have to work very hard to get to rikers right now, let's be clear on that for what we have done to them, if they are in rikus right now, they did not steal an apple. you didn't commit an innocent crime, if you were at Rikers you did something really bad, that's what happened skylar Bloomberg so we're here talking about crime and you know the public perception doesn't justify it. It seems like the city is really safe, but a Bloomberg analysis found that digital and print crime news 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 that with these press conferences you feel like you are 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 did 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 the crime , then the real question is whether the media drives the narrative, not my drive in the narrative. I do press conferences every day, almost sometimes. two a day and the topics of my press conferences have nothing to do with crime, getting the ferry system up and running, that's not a crime, what I did yesterday with the heating and air conditioning, that's not a crime, so it's not, Eric drives the crime.

The real analysis should be: let's look at how many press conferences Eric gave about crime, which is an important issue for our city, but let's look at how much coverage the media is doing about crime. Let's do an analysis of how many front page stories talked about crime in this city, so what's driving the narrative is 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 we associate them with almost some mentoring, what do we do? We're screening for dyslexia, you heard me say over and over again, almost 40 percent of the inmates said they were dyslexic.

What we're doing was employing a hundred thousand for the first time in history, 100,000 summer youth in jobs, keeping our schools open. and ten thousand rising in the summer we didn't close the schools uh there was a waiting list to do it uh what are we doing around the paid internship program our youth live in shelters if you grow up in a shelter you're less likely to graduate from the high school, if you don't educate, you're going to go to prison. There has not been an administration that has been more progressive in the way upstream treats crime prevention than this administration, but we have to intervene right now. someone is doing a robbery with a gun, I can't try to convince him, you know, you shouldn't rob this person, the police have to do their job, so yeah, we are a great prevention group, that's my administration, it's great prevention and we have some great The programs that we have implemented and that we are going to implement to continue to erode what is creating some of these young people to be criminals, okay, thank you very much, and we are saying this again.

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 who break the law for the first time , they made a serious mistake, I know what it is. It's making a big mistake when I was a kid, I made big mistakes, so let's stop that now, let's focus on that 10 percent that have made a decision, they're going to be repeat offenders, that's all we're saying, let's modify what you've done, let's do an analysis and we have done this before, let's do an analysis of what has been done and let's go after those who are exploiting the fair reforms that were implemented.

We did this with sex offenders. I backed away and said, listen, there are people who are exploiting this, let's suggest this, so we have to do it right, we are talking about public safety and when you talk about public safety and justice, you can't be ashamed to say, let's modify. To get what we want, no one disputes the figures we have shown. There are a substantial number of repeat offenders who have decided that they are going to commit crimes and who are going to create and carry out crimes in our country. city ​​these are these are the numbers before we even took this position we contacted 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 felony arrests we have an increase in gun crimes we have an increase in all of these areas this is where we are losing this battle and this is why we are here and this is why we are going to keep moving forward on this topic all true thank you all thank you the brush