Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces $36 Million to Law Enforcement Agencies in 28 Communities to Sustain Progress in the State’s Fight Against Gun Violence

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochu joined local law enforcement and elected officials including County Executive Ed Romaine, visited the Suffolk County Police Academy to announce that $36 million has been awarded to local law enforcement agencies across the state to bolster efforts to reduce gun violence. A nationally recognized program, the Gun Involved Violence Elimination (GIVE) initiative provides law enforcement agencies in 28 communities outside of New York City with state funding for equipment, overtime, and personnel, as well as comprehensive, focused training and technical assistance. As a result, between 2021 and 2024, shootings in GIVE jurisdictions dropped 52 percent. Last year, shooting incidents with injury reached the lowest point since the state began tracking data in 2006. In 2024, Long Island had the lowest number of shootings in recent recorded history.

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:

Good morning. Good morning. Please be seated. I know a number of individuals are recognized, our assemblymembers, our senators, our local county officials, but I also want to give a special shout out to our County Executive, Ed Romaine. He's been a great, strong ally of mine. I want to appreciate him every chance I get. Thank him for his leadership here. County Executive, Ed Romaine.

As we mentioned, Dr. Errol Toulon. Doctor, I didn't know it was Doctor. Dr. Errol Toulon. Our sheriff is here as well. I want to thank him for joining us. Angie Carpenter, our supervisor, welcome to Angie. There's others — members of the town board. I'm a former town board member, so I think they're the most important people in the room sometimes. And also a member of my administration, Steven James, the Superintendent. You heard our host here today. Belinda Alvarez-Groneman, our Deputy Police Commissioner and Ed Donahue, our President of Suffolk Community College. Let's give everybody a round of applause.

I come to Suffolk County often, other counties are starting to take note. That's okay. That's okay. It's an incredible place — extraordinary quality of life, engaged citizens who care deeply about their community, and making sure that we have a first rate place to raise their kids, educate them, run a business. It's really a special place.

And those of you who live here maybe take that for granted. But I can tell you, I love coming here because there's such a sense of community and looking out for each other. And every time I come here, I'm reminded of what we're fighting for — strong neighborhoods, safe streets, and as I said, communities that look out for one another. And there's no better place to talk about this than the Suffolk County Police Academy.

And just last week we had 154 recruits graduate, and they're willing to put themselves through the rigors of training and be ready to put on a uniform when the day is ready and to go into harm's way, literally every single day. I commend their families. It's a sacrifice for them. And I speak at every single State Police academy graduation.

I'm so proud that we have people willing to be so selfless, think of others and it's an opportunity for many, but very few answer that call. And I'm truly in awe of those who do. So let's give another round of applause to all of our men and women in law enforcement. So to them, I thank all of you, but also my number one priority as your Governor is keeping people safe.

This is the strong alignment that we have, always has been, always will be. I know what I'm there for. And that's why, first of all, we start with investments. "Put your money where your mouth is," they say — $2.6 billion in police and public safety since I've been Governor less than four years. When I first became Governor, I also knew that we had an opportunity to really laser focus on the scourge of gun violence. The guns that are crumbing across borders, that iron pipeline that was bringing illegal guns to our streets.

You know why we know they're from out of state? Because you don't manufacture them in New York. They're all from out of state. And we had to stem the tide of all the illegal guns that were flowing here. And now our State Police are working with local law enforcement to seize three times as many more guns today than they did when I first became Governor because we put a priority on removing guns off the streets.

We equipped our crime analysis centers with cutting edge ballistic technology. Information's available to our local law enforcement partners. We improved data and intelligence sharing, and we supported the vital work of community intervention and prevention programs. It's much better for us to identify young people at risk and get them into healthy programs and activities and steer them away from the temptations of the streets that could lead them to a different outcome.

My husband was a federal prosecutor for 30 years, was a former United States attorney in the streets of Buffalo and worked hard with our community partners. The violence disruptors, those who've been through the system themselves, who know what it's like, and they're the best advocates to talk to our young people about how to make sure that they do the right thing and lead themselves to a better, healthier life.

So I believe in those programs to my core, but when young people do make the wrong decisions or anyone, we need to know that there's consequences and they're willing to stand up. I've had to make some strong reforms to the bail laws that were changed a few years ago before I became Governor, in a way that was not protecting our communities, was not giving the judges the tools they need to ensure that people who have committed crimes are not just cycled back into our streets. We got those changed, not once, but twice. I had to go back twice to the legislature. It was not an easy fight, but we got it done.

We just changed our discovery laws. Most people don't think about discovery laws, but think about this. We had tens of thousands of cases every single year where the cases made, prosecutors are ready to present it and judges throughout cases, after case based on technicalities, unrelated to the strength of the case. Sometimes it's duplicate information that was missing, but still under the laws that were there, their hands were tied and our streets were less safe.

I said, “No more. That must change.” And again, it was not an easy fight at all, but my Long Island partners know what that's all about. They stood with us to understand that our number one priority is keeping people safe. When the laws are skewed in one direction, it does not. We have to bring them back, let the pendulum swing back to the middle where there's justice for all.But not a system that favors those who would do harm to others.

So got that done. We count on our judges, by the way, to enforce them. I don't always see that across the state. I'll point that out time and time again. But also, there's areas where we've made a big difference. The red flag laws, I have to commend Suffolk County in terms of the extreme risk orders of protection where we change them, but all the others who see the signs that someone is likely to do harm to someone else or even themselves.

This really came into full vision for me after the mass shooting in my hometown of Buffalo. Ten innocent people slaughtered grocery shopping on a bright Saturday morning in May, a few years ago. There were signs with this individual the shooter — he wasn't from Buffalo, he was from three hours away in the southern part of New York. But he decided that he would look at a map — I don't know if he really looked at a map, he probably just Googled it but — to find the place with the largest Black population closest drive to him.

It was about three and a half hours to the Bronx, it was three hours to Buffalo. He chose Buffalo to commit his heinous crime, but there were signs and red flags that were up and they weren't noticed by people in the school system and others. So we went back immediately and changed the laws working with the legislature to toughen our laws, and I'm really, really proud that Suffolk County leads the entire state in protecting its citizens because they have more extreme orders of protection issued — more than 4,000 so far this year. It's working — people are safer and all these efforts are starting to pay off after seeing the trend lines that were disturbing.

They're frightened of crime going up and up and up, and now they're going down. And just this past year, overall crime declined four percent compared to 2023, which was again another improved year. And between January and June of this year, shootings are down 19 percent just in a few months. And gun murders are down 15 percent compared to the same time last year. And meanwhile here on Long Island, we've had the lowest number of shootings on record — on record in 2024. And that goes way back — that's extraordinary thank you to our law enforcement partners, thank you. Overall crime dropped nine percent. Murders fell 24 percent compared to 2023 and 40 percent since 2021, when I first took office. It's down 40 percent. And again, some people say, well of course, don't get casual about those numbers, it could have gone up 40 percent. That's the trend we are looking at my friends, it's dropped dramatically because of an intentional effort to engage local law enforcement to share information, to give money to counties.

You know, it's not just the numbers and I know these statistics are hard to process. What does it mean? But it means there's more people alive today or people that have not been injured because of gun violence, sitting having a nice summer dinner with their families, a barbecue because of the work of so many people in this room, and that's why we do this — that's exactly why we do this. But I know more than anyone, our work is always far from done when it comes to protecting people because one crime, one shooting, one murder is one too many. And in fact, in Suffolk County, we've seen a slight increase, you know from statistically — it doesn't matter because it's from 14 to 16.

I mean that's something I'm paying attention to. And seven people lost their lives to gun violence this year already. Now, in a county of 1.5 million people, these would be viewed as small statistically. But again, we're focused on every single life protecting every single person — and that's why we have to keep making these investments.

Now we have a program called The Gun Involved Violence Elimination Initiative. Simply put, it's called GIVE. Here's how it works, we provide people with funding. Twenty-one law enforcement agencies across the state and here on Long Island receive dollars from us every single year. What they do is that they hire more personnel, add more to their academies, buy more equipment, pay for overtime, enhance training, and use the latest technologies — and I've gone on the beats with a number of police officers and seen how this works. The hot spot policing, microtargeting neighborhoods that you know are trouble spots and just staying in there unrelenting until you take the perpetrators out.

We often find it's the same number of people. It's the same people creating crime after crime. You take them out of the system and you have a safe community. We're focusing on deterrence, street outreach, and the results really speak for themselves. In these districts alone, shootings are down 52 percent — even more than statewide. In these targeted communities, including Long Island. Homicides have dropped again. So I'll say this, when something's starting to work, when you can see the trends, and I watched this — I read the crime data every single week. I get security briefings every week, just was on the phone with my Superintendent this morning.

I look at everything, I get a Colonel telling me what's happening with our intelligence briefings, our cyber threats, what's happening globally, because we are always a threat here in the State of New York, just even though people may be millions of thousands of miles away, New York is always a vulnerable place.

So this year we're reinvesting another $36 million into this program because it works. We're supporting 28 law enforcement organizations, including nine right here on Long Island. So we have $2.6 million coming to this area, $1.3 million for our individual counties. And I'll say this, no Governor has ever invested this much money in law enforcement, local law enforcement because I understand.

It's not just us sitting in Albany, it's what you're doing here in the streets and the trainees that come out of this academy and people wearing uniforms in this room. And there's nothing more important, as I said, to keep people safe. So the message is loud and clear. It's working my friends, it's working.

And we're going to continue on this path, continue the investments, continue the strategies, and always use the latest technological investment advances because we are New York. We want to be leading the nation as we are. One of the lowest violent crime rates in America is in your home state of New York. You may not know that from watching certain news stations, but it's the reality — because strategies like this are working.

So I'll say this, I'll make sure that all of you have the resources you need, the tools you need to keep all of us safe, because that is why we're here. So thank you everyone for joining us and celebrating these great numbers, great statistics, great progress, but we're not done yet.