Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Joins NYPD to Announce Expanded Bronx Patrols and Highlight Citywide Summer Crime-Fighting Efforts

Today, Governor Kathy Hochul joined New York Police Department (NYPD) Commissioner Jessica Tisch and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as the NYPD announced expanded Bronx patrols and citywide summer crime-fighting efforts.

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Thank you, Mayor. You know, in order to keep this city safe, it is absolutely incumbent upon its leaders to be real partners in fighting crime. And I thank the Mayor and his extraordinary police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, for all of us working together toward one objective - making this the safest summer that we've ever seen. And I'm really proud of your announcements, Mayor. They make common sense improvements and changes. I want to hear, I'm here to tell you how much I appreciate that. Also, it's an opportunity for me to come out and tell the men and women of NYPD how grateful I am for them every single day for showing up on the job, putting their lives on the line. And here, you heard it, the largest decline in crime was in one borough. The largest was in this borough, right here in the Bronx.

I'm really, really excited to know that because I'm reminded of a time when I came here just a few years ago when there was a huge surge in crime across the state, across the nation, in fact, but the Bronx seemed to be hardest hit. And I remember walking with some leaders in a business district, a business improvement district, and stopping into a little bakery. And the owner said, "Retail theft has gotten so bad that I just leave my cash drawer open because they're coming in, they may be getting arrested, they get an appearance ticket, and they're literally back the next day." And I took that story to Albany, and I said, "We have to do more. We have to look at the laws that are allowing this to happen. We have to look at the crimes, the sanctions we have for retail theft, and aggregate crimes together so more can be treated as felonies to stop these crime rings." And I've been tracking these numbers closely. Here in the Bronx, retail theft alone is down 20%, not since that time, but literally since last year. So I want to thank the people who are making this happen on the ground. I'll continue to be a partner in driving the message in Albany that we have to do more to help our district attorneys. We have unprecedented funding for our district attorneys on retail theft and a whole series of crimes. People like Darcel Clark on the front lines helping protect our neighbors. I want to thank her and all the others who've joined us here today. But I just want to say a couple more things.

We've invested $3 billion at the state level in fighting crime. Often it's the technology, crime fighting, license plate readers, whether it's drone technology, or even something like enhancing patrols on the subways. We saw this not long ago. Started making some progress on the subways, but spring hit, and all of a sudden there was a spike. We cannot tolerate a spike in this because all of a sudden it goes back to that time when people are starting to feel unease. Is it safe to let my child take the subway to high school? Is it safe to go to a doctor's appointment if you're a senior citizen? The subway has to be safe. So we invested in people, we put in more resources, and I'm proud in the budget that we're just, in my opinion, is done, but they're just still voting on it. $77 million more in funding for NYPD to be able to protect our subways.

Lastly, I also know that there's been a spike in ghost guns. You know what ghost guns are? Someone can literally have a 3D-printer in their kitchen and create a gun that is undetectable, obviously never registered, and use that with a little device they make - it's this big - to have it be an enhancement to a gun that is capable of having 1,300 rounds per minute. That is a weapon of mass destruction. We'll be the first state in the nation to say we are banning the sale of those products in our stores. You cannot sell a 3D-printer in New York that can be enabled to create these weapons of destruction. So these are the changes we're making in Albany. We had a focus on the repeat offenders, our discovery laws, the bail laws. And I'm just getting one more editorial comment here. You can complain about a late budget, but everything I'm talking about happened in a late budget. So I'll take a late budget any day - prefer on time - but if that's what gets these streets safer and gives our police commissioner and our DAs and others the tools they need, then I'll be on the front lines of that as well. So, it's about partnerships.

I know we're in for a heck of a summer because we've got the World Cup. Have you heard about this? It's a big event. Big event. We will have a lot of events together. America 250, we are so happy to host the world to come and see the birth of our democracy play out in reenactments and events across the state. Sail 250. So our police officers are going to be so busy. You can count on the state of New York to be your ally and your partner to continue the work that's being done here on the streets, to be an ally to help make sure that we all do what we want to do. We'd rather prevent crimes than have to solve crimes. Thank you very much.

Well, I'll introduce you. It is an honor to introduce you because your reputation has spread across our nation in terms of someone who has the common sense approach and the leadership skills to protect the largest, most diverse city in this country. So ladies and gentlemen, it's a huge point of pride for me to introduce our Police Commissioner, Jessica Tisch.