Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Highlights $23.5 Million to Reduce Crime in Syracuse and Onondaga County

Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Highlights $23.5 Million to Reduce Crime in Syracuse and Onondaga County

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul highlighted $23.5 million in state public safety investments in the City of Syracuse and Onondaga County for law enforcement agencies and community-based organizations, including $2.5 million in new funding to establish diversion programs to strengthen services and connect justice-involved young people with education and employment opportunities. At the same time, Governor Hochul detailed the state's record-level, $3.2 million investment through the state's Gun Involved Violence Elimination initiative, $3.2 million in technology and equipment funding for county law enforcement agencies, and $2 million in second-year funding through Project RISE to support community-based organizations addressing the impact of gun violence and providing youth opportunities.

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. Good morning. Please sit down. I just wrapped up a meeting with community leaders, our law enforcement, the elected leaders behind me, our mayor, our county executive, our district attorney, representatives from probation, the sheriff's department, ATF, and state police, and had a very, very thought-provoking conversation about what we're doing about property crimes and why it's on the rise in this area and how we can reach and change the trajectory of so many young people who are getting caught up with these crimes right here in Syracuse.

I know this community's been hurting and I really want to acknowledge that. I've heard the horrific stories of kids stealing cars and friends getting killed and finding themselves in a cycle of recidivism even before they graduate from high school and we talk about the fact that there's a 50 percent absenteeism rate here in the City of Syracuse Public Schools.

50 percent of children are not showing up for classes. And what I learned was that this isn't even happening in kindergarten. Kindergarten children are not showing up and they're not getting that start in life that they deserve. Full day kindergarten is available. It's a safe, secure place and kids are not being sent there by their parents.

So these are some of the challenges and I wanted to just have a conversation about how my administration is there for you and how we can protect the community and making sure that my number one priority -which has been my number one priority for the last three years as your governor - is to keep people safe and how we can find solutions for this.

So, we'll be talking about some investments we're making, what we want to do to make sure that Syracuse and Onondaga County are places people are safe. Not only are safe, but feel safe as well. And sometimes there's a disconnect between the two. So I do want to acknowledge again, the Mayor of Syracuse has joined us.

I've been a great partner for a long time. And we've worked on so many transformative projects together. We're just - I was getting an update on the Syracuse Developmental Center. I just spent a little bit of time this morning over at the I-81 site putting on some boots and the hard hat and just checking on that as well. And I really have been so appreciative of his leadership and how he has brought this community to such an extraordinary place that I'm really proud of. Let's give another round of applause to our mayor.

And Ryan McMahon, our county executive, here and you'll always associate his name with one other word which is "Micron" and I was just having some announcements in Albany about us Semiconductor Training Center Facility, $825 million, and they're coming on this I-90 Innovation Corridor, which Syracuse is dead center in.

They're bringing those very competitive programs and initiatives to our state because of Micron coming out. And you had the land ready, you had the vision, and I want to always applaud you for your great work. Let's give another round of applause for our county executive.

Our district attorney Bill Fitzpatrick had some really thoughtful ideas on what we can also do to collaborate and work together and to find more ways to, you know, just really just solve these problems. And he's really taken his office to an important place. I want to thank him for his leadership as well.

And I'm so grateful for the local partners that I have in the state legislature. I mean, you have extraordinary elected officials here in this room. Their voices are strong and powerful in Albany. I assure you they're aggressive on your behalf, and I consider them all my friends.

I want to thank Assemblyman Bill Magnarelli. Good to see you. Consulting Member Pam Hunter, thank you so much. And I remember walking your district as well in Westover. We were talking about that, and now we've had some challenges there as well. And also Rachel May, great, great champion for this area.

Thank you for all you do for us. And also Al Stirpe, I don't know that Al's here, but again, another friend. Members of the Common Council, and also want to acknowledge Yolanda Seegars. You'll be hearing from her, the Project RISE director.

So, here's what the dynamic is right now on the ground here in Syracuse. We've made some remarkable strides dealing with crime here in Central New York. Remarkable. Like every region of the state, violent crime is down here significantly since I took office. And let me give you some statistics that you'll be very impressed with. Here in Syracuse, shootings are down 25 percent just from last year, down 44 percent during my time as governor. Down 44 percent.

In fact, Syracuse had fewer shootings in 2024, thus far, than any previous year on record. Never before have we seen statistics related shootings this low in the history that we've been keeping track. And the results extend beyond the county, beyond the city. In Onondaga County, crime is down 13 percent, down 16 percent in the last couple of years. That's for violent crimes. Those are the frightening statistics about murders and shootings. And they really reflect the outstanding work of the men and women in uniform here and those who are their leaders. And also we have had unprecedented funding in a partnership that flows down from Albany to the local law enforcement entities.

But that's only one side of the coin. They don't tell the whole story. Because what we're dealing with, glad violent crimes are down. Those are the worst of the worst. Outstanding progress. Thank you, everyone. But over here, we're dealing with property crimes, which by themselves, property crimes, what does that mean? We're talking about a surge in larcenies and break ins and youth crime.

And it's really been traumatic for this community. And really, the benchmark to judge Trump is from the pandemic, when it feels like the wheels came off of society. Something happened that sociologists can figure out and tell us years from now, but all we know is we're still dealing with this.

Larcenies are up 30 percent since the pandemic. Auto thefts have more than doubled. And I take this so seriously because every car theft, you know - this can shake a community's sense of security to know that your vehicle with your personal belongings in it has been stolen. But, you walk out of your front door and your car is there, you're not getting to work, your kids are not getting to school. It is so disturbing and so upsetting, and it just - it hits you right here that you have this lack of security. So it's a really intrusive crime when you think about it. And you may have saved up a lot of money for that car. Not everybody has an extra car in the garage. You don't have an extra Lexus that you can just drive to work. That might have been your 10-year-old Kia and that's all you've got, and you don't have the money to replace it because the prices have gone up.

So, what happens is that the most vulnerable people who cannot afford to get that other vehicle as easily - and we don't have the vast public transportation networks that we do in larger cities like New York City - we rely on our cars in Upstate. I know this because I used to register cars as the head of the DMV. I know how reliant we are on vehicles here. So, vulnerable communities and individuals are being victimized and the vast majority of stolen cars are the older models. And some of them have this design flaw. The Kias and Hyundais - we've talked about that. And, you know, like I said, it's stealing their livelihood. You're not going to work that day if you don't have your vehicle, and you may not have a replacement for some time.

Now, let's talk about who's doing this: These aren't 60-year-old people stealing cars. We're talking about predominantly teenagers. And they're getting younger and younger. We're not talking about 17- and 18-year-olds. We're talking about 13-, 14- and 15-year-olds. And we know just a couple of days ago a 13-year-old stole a car and led police on a dangerous, dangerous ride. We know what happened with the teenagers in the vehicle recently.

There's also been a spike in break ins and larcenies. And this is at your home or your office or your business. And Westcott Street has seen a large number of them, right? So, I remember Westcott which is right where I used to live. You know, that was my neighborhood when I was a student and when I lived off campus. And, I know how hard they've been trying. We walked there during the pandemic. And, you know, the businesses - some of them just starting out again - you got young people who are starting their nice little restaurant or bar or cafe and some of the legacy businesses who have been there a long time; they're all struggling now to come out of this and finally take a breath and say, "We got through the pandemic. We're going to be okay." And then you get slammed with a spike in crime where people are preying on you and stealing your livelihood right out from under your eyes.

And so you have to put up the plywood boards over the windows to stop the break-ins. It doesn't convey a sense of a stable neighborhood when that starts to happen and they don't deserve that. This is a great community. And, like I said, the young people committing crimes - we're working really hard to tailor a solution to meet Syracuse's needs. We've already funded police at record levels. I mean, we've quadrupled the amount of money going for law enforcement. You know, about $5 million up to $21 million, and again, that's made a major dent in violent crime. We've also given unprecedented money to district attorneys across the State to implement the new bail laws and to deal with retail theft and to deal with domestic violence.

Whenever we see a spike in crime, we also know at the front lines are our prosecutors, and they need more resources. We can't just keep telling them, "Do more and do more and more," without giving them the resources. So we focused on that. But the other side is the people themselves and how we get to these young people and how we let them know that this does not have to be your destiny. Your destiny is not determined by your zip code and that there's pathways out of this and there are others who have fallen prey to the the allure of the street gangs, where that might be the only family and the only support system you have and that's all you know. And how do you break them out of that? Because people have broken from that. And many of them do lead violence disruptor programs because they've lived through it themselves.

When I was in Buffalo, my husband was a United States Attorney there. He worked in the U.S. Attorney's Office for most of his career. And I was out there in the streets as an elected official. I got to know so many of these individuals who started the SNUG programs and all the, you know, the DADS programs and all the people who went through the justice system themselves came out, and had a story to tell that is powerful that only they can tell. And I saw the success of them reaching into that community and pulling these kids up, saying, "Don't be like me, here's what you need to be doing."

I so support these programs with my whole being, because I know they truly work. So we need to help steer these kids away from the crimes. So today, to help assist us, I'm announcing $5 million in new State funding, specifically targeted to reducing youth crime and recidivism here in Central New York.

Now, we're going to be distributing this to the city, and the county and various community based organizations - $1 million will go directly to Onondaga County to address youth recidivism, $1.5 million will go to the city of Syracuse to have a youth intervention program called Exalt.

The model was established in New York City. It works. We bring in programs here that work. This is through tightly structured classes and internships and access to mentors, and it really helps kids who've had a run in with the law get a roadmap for getting out of that situation and letting them be on a better path.

And, that's the core of my governing philosophy - find out what might be working somewhere else, and export it to another area. We don't always have to be charged with coming up with the solutions. I guarantee some other communities have had to go through this before. And, I'm looking forward to taking ideas and solutions we innovate here in Syracuse and exporting them to other parts of the state. That's what I'm always doing.

But also, I believe in the grassroots programs more than anything. This is the people on the streets, the storefronts, the people who are the trusted messengers to the neighborhood. And of today's new funding, $2 million will go to 11 grassroots organizations in Syracuse through Project RISE. These are the programs that will provide mental health support, crisis intervention, youth employment, which is everything - I mean, you can get a job, I think, still at 15. Can 15-year-olds still work? 14? All right.

I know Wegmans is always hiring and all the stores around here that we shop in and the fast food places. I mean those are great places to have that first job like I did. I was making pizza at 14. I'm still really good at it. So, it starts out there and you have this sense of responsibility. You have to show up. There's an adult who's keeping an eye on you other than your parents, and it does create this sense of "you're part of a larger community," and we have to foster that.

So, I really truly believe in not just mentoring with another adult, but also getting in a work site after school and on your weekends, and it's just, it's so good for these young people to have that confidence in themselves. And, vocational training.

Like I said, I just left the I-81 site, and there was a young man there that was working. His father had worked to build the original I-81 50 years ago, and he had had the training. He lived in the neighborhood, and he was so proud, he just couldn't stop smiling to tell me this story. These are the best jobs you can ever find anywhere. We have to hire so many young people with the skills to build 20 years worth of Micron.

I mean, we have 20 years of build out that's going to go on in Micron. We're just in phase one of I-81. These are just two examples where I need workers with every skill - and you can raise a family on this - and the pride of being out there and seeing the handiwork of what you worked on - being part of the community's story - it's extraordinary.

So, whatever we can do to get them into all kinds of training, but especially in the trades - I know so many of them are willing to do this, and they are. So, with both these programs - with RISE and Exalt - there's a real focus on the jobs and the training, and I just want to keep focusing on that, and help them know that. These are transformational programs, but my view is that for as long as you're old enough to work, the best crime-fighting strategy is for people to have a job at all ages. That's what you do, and I will continue working on these efforts.

And, just for trying to tackle these as we whack the mole every time, I'm going to give a shipment of 1,000 steering wheel locks to Syracuse. Here you go. You're going to see these on 1,000 vehicles here because of this. And, they look a little cumbersome, a little intimidating, but they work - they work. No one is taking your vehicle if you have one of these on the steering wheel. I guarantee it.

So, we're going to continue supporting you with those and anything else you think you need from us, any resident can receive one up to the first thousand, and we'll keep working on that.

So, with today's new funding, we've invested $23.5 million dollars this year alone in the anti-crime initiatives, and policing and making sure that we continue this major commitment. We'll continue our efforts. I'm not going anywhere. This is my second home. I know this place like the back of my hand, and I love this community. I love the positivity of what's going on, and even in our schools, we're training kids in coding and different computer science skills, so they can take jobs at Micron.

We're doing things differently, but until we ensure that every young person has a better path, and that our law enforcement and support and our community organizations are all part of the solution - until that time when it's all working the way we want it to, we're not going anywhere.

We're going to keep showing up and supporting you. That's what state government is supposed to be all about, and that's what it's all about under my administration. So, I know we can do it. Let's continue supporting our men and women in uniform - as I've said, I can never thank them enough. And, for our elected leaders, appreciate all you do for us.

And with that let me introduce again, our great mayor, Mayor Ben Walsh.

Contact the Governor's Office