Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul visited the Syracuse Public Safety Building to highlight more than $6.7 million in state investments that are modernizing law enforcement technology and equipment across Central New York. Governor Hochul and local officials also highlighted that crime in Syracuse is down nearly 28 percent year to date, according to Syracuse city officials. The visit included a briefing with elected officials, law enforcement and public safety leaders from across the region, followed by a technology demonstration featuring state-of-the-art technology. Distributed to 378 police departments and sheriffs' offices statewide, the $127 million is delivering results by improving officer safety, protecting New Yorkers, and strengthening operations.

B-ROLL: B-Roll is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

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 has photos of the event here.

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

Good morning, proud to be back in Syracuse, a place I spent many years of college, I never had any encounters with the individuals behind me. I just want to put that out there for the record. So, I do want to come back here as Governor, and again, show appreciation for everything they do.

First of all, I wanted to acknowledge some of our leaders who are here today, our District Attorney Bill Fitzpatrick, who's been a strong ally, particularly when it came to some very serious and complex investigations and prosecutions involving our prisons. I'm always grateful to him for the manner in which he approached that weighty responsibility. Also, our Sheriff, Toby Shelley, here from Onondaga County, grateful for all his work as well. A long time friend of mine, Mayor Ben Walsh, who I have nothing but high praise and admiration for you. Done an extraordinary job transforming the city, and I could not be prouder to see what's been happening here in this region. Also our Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens has joined us. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Also our Chief of Police, Joe Cecile. And we just had a very important conversation with him as well. And I have Joe Popcun for the Executive Deputy Commissioner from the Division of Criminal Justice Services.

So, I just want to talk about a quick review I had here at Syracuse. We stopped by and saw the crime analysis center. We saw a lovely demonstration from Spot here, but I also wanted to sit down and just talk about something that is quite amazing and that is the inverse crime statistics that we're now seeing contrasted to when I was first elected and took office four years ago.

I've been here a number of times, as I mentioned, but we've also realized that there's ways that we could be supportive and help drive down the crime statistics that were really escalating for a number of years. As a Governor, I committed over $127 million for technology upgrades. This is called a technology upgrade, one of many examples, and that includes $6.7 million for agencies around Central New York.

Now, here at the Syracuse Police Department, it's been used for drones surveillance cameras, LED lighting to patrol hotspot areas, and as I mentioned, you saw an example a little while ago of this robot who really performs a unique job. But also when you think about the uses, if someone's barricaded in a home and is too dangerous or inaccessible to law enforcement to go in, but you're concerned about what is unfolding there, literally this robot can go into it and use technology to send back photos send a device, send a phone in there and really diffuse the situation, without putting an officer in harm's way.

So, over the last few years, I've calculated, we've invested literally over two years, $30 million of investment here in the Syracuse area to support our gun involved initiative. $3.2 million for Project Rise to help the young people. This is so important to find alternatives to incarceration for them to give them healthy activities, keep them away from gangs and violence on the streets and put them on a better path for a more productive future. And again, the million dollars for the crime analysis center, which we saw a demonstration of. So, how there's 500 cameras around the city, literally watching all the areas that are hotspots, trying to not just solve crimes, but prevent crimes, which is critically important. So, that is one of 11 centers across the state that can crack our most complicated situations because they're not always defined by geographic boundaries - people and vehicles move across county lines and we want to make sure we can stay on top of that. Our crime analysis center alone has handled 23,000 requests twice as many as the previous year.

We also had to make some serious changes to our laws. This is something I heard when I came to communities like Syracuse, like Onondaga County - are we doing enough to make sure that our laws are fair. Fair not just for the perpetrators, defendants has been a hallmark of our system of government and our rights, but also is it fair for the victims? And for too long I never heard from the victims that they had rights and they felt that they were sort of collateral damage of a system that was skewed too far in the other direction. And we worked very hard to change that dynamic stronger bail laws to keep repeat offenders off the street. Stronger discovery laws, which was a major undertaking just in the last session of the Legislature but with support of our District Attorneys across the state, we got it done. Stronger red flag laws, some of the strongest in the nation, and the results are real, that they're keeping people who could do harm to themselves or others away from having access to a gun.

So, let's talk about just one year. I mean, I'm not just talking about the four years we've been making these investments. In one year, just compared to last year, Syracuse crime is down 28 percent. I mean, that deserves a round applause for the men and women here, but also our partners throughout different levels of government. Violent crime is down 14 percent, shootings are down 15 percent. As well as when we compare our - with the five year average, the numbers are even more encouraging. If you look at the last five years now, this was just one year till now, the numbers I just shared, let's look at the last five years. Shootings are down 52 percent. That's a drum roll. I mean, it is extraordinary to see that decline. Gun related deaths are down 50 percent.

But also we had a real crisis of youth violence and youth crime when I came here a year ago and gathered everyone, and we said that car thefts break-ins and larcenies were - many times it was just young people taking a TikTok challenge, which is what drove a lot of the car thefts. And we had a 13-year-old steal a car and lead police on a dangerous chase through one of our areas here. Small business owners over in Westcott over where I used to live putting up plywood boards over their windows because they're being repeatedly smashed in by teenagers.

And so I said, enough is enough. I came here a little less than a year ago. I brought together all of our leaders of the community, prosecutors, and law enforcement, the Sheriff and said, "What do you need? Just tell me what you need. I'm here to help." And so we went back and brought our all of a government approach. We had Mayor Walsh and Deputy Mayor Owen - said, "We have to help these teenagers. Number one, more mentors, more job opportunities, more alternatives." And so we delivered $2.5 million to support really the grassroots organizations that are doing God's work to put these kids on a different path.

And as I've mentioned, car thefts are down dramatically. I just want to say this. What I have learned is: listen to local communities. Find out what their leaders need to keep the communities safe, but also how to improve coordination. How to use assets that we've available to us at the state level and make them available here. But a lot of it is listening to local counties and then delivering for them, and that we've done with resources, technology grants and finding any way we can to continue the path we're now on, which is making this community safer and a better place to live and to raise families.

So, I'm grateful for that. Again, I anticipate there'll be even more crimes starting tomorrow, but again, the trend has shifted. I'm going to focus intensely. I'm making sure that we can continue in that direction and if we see any change in that, we'll be back on the ground. We'll be saying, what's happening here? How do we make adjustments? What laws need to be changed? What resources you need because I want to make sure that we continue to be nimble. That one crime is one too many.

So I also want to thank our Chief of Police, in particular, and ask him to come up and say a few words about the difference that is making in his operations, the support we've been giving. Where's our Chief? Chief, come on up here.

Contact the Governor's Press Office