B-Roll, Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Safer Streets: Governor Hochul Highlights $24 Million Investment in Law Enforcement Technology for 10 Police Agencies in Monroe[...]

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul visited Rochester to highlight the state's investment of $24 million to modernize law enforcement technology and equipment across Monroe County's police departments and sheriffs' offices. The visit included a demonstration of the Rochester Police Department's new blue light cameras, which help deter and solve crimes and the city purchased through the state's Law Enforcement Technology grant program. These technology grants and sustained, record-level funding for other public safety initiatives, including the Gun Involved Violence Elimination (GIVE) initiative, are contributing to safer communities across the state. Monroe County and the City of Rochester have experienced an 18 percent decrease in index crimes and the Rochester Police Department - one of 28 that participate in GIVE - has reported a 57 percent decrease in shooting incidents with injury since Governor Hochul took office.

B-ROLL of the Governor viewing the new equipment at Rochester Public Safety Building 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 will post photos of the event here.

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

Good morning everyone. I'm joined here today with a large group of individuals. Every one of them is committed to protecting the safety of our residents, particularly here in Monroe County. I do want to - first of all - acknowledge our great Mayor. You'll be hearing from him momentarily, but we've been working literally in close partnership since he first became mayor to deal with some of the great challenges we have in a city like Rochester. Not unlike other cities, but we've seen crime go up over a number of years, and now thank God we're seeing crime go down. We'll hear you'll hear more about that.

Also our Chief of the Rochester Police Department David Smith, again, another strong partner of ours at the State level as we continue to share resources and ideas and intelligence to make sure we do what we do to stop crimes. Our Congressman Joe Morelle is here. Thank you for fighting. Joe, where are you? Joe, thank you for fighting the good fight. I know it's been pretty tough out there, but we're very fortunate to have you as our voice for this region and the state.

Our County Executive, Adam Bello. I want to thank our County Executive for his stewardship of a great county and the partnership we have. He's always asking for more money, and the answer's usually yes. So he's very effective. And again, another strong ally in law enforcement, our Sheriff, Todd Baxter and a new District Attorney, Brian Green. Welcome to the job. It's an important one, and I know you've only been on since September, but congratulations.

My partners in state government, Senator Jeremy Cooney and Harry Bronson, our Assemblymember. Jennifer Lunsford, our Assemblymember, and our Director of the Monroe County Crime Analysis Center, David Phelps.

So, I'm proud to be here in joining the brave men and women of the Rochester PD and whether they're new recruits or longtime veterans, they have that strong sense of mission and that mission is to use every single day as an opportunity to create a safe space, a safe environment, a safe city, a safe county for our residents.

And I want to thank them. So I come here, I go all over the State, thanking men and women in law enforcement for what they do for us every single day. And I'll also say this about Rochester, since it's basically home turf for me. We share that passion for the Bills. We share part of the Thruway together. And a lot of other similarities as I'm from Buffalo - Rochester, and I did have the privilege of representing part of this county as a member of Congress, but I started seeing some statistics and cases, high profile cases that were deeply concerning to me. And even just a year ago, I stood here at City Hall and made a vow that I will give you all the tools you need. I'll give you whatever you need to make sure that you have the latest in technology so we can try to stay at least one step ahead of the criminal elements, or when a crime has been committed to solve it and bring justice to victims as fast as possible.

We literally had a surge of State Police to assist here on the ground. We secured extra funding for grassroots organizations. What's so important to me is how we can reach out to young people and help them find a better path before they go down the wrong road toward a life of crime. And so we focused on mentorship and keeping kids away from crime. And we allocated $24 million for Monroe County to purchase the best crime fighting technology they could buy. That included $10 million for the Rochester PD, and today I'm able to see some of these tools up close. We'll be acquiring more drones. We were able to secure this CD printer, and also we're going to be getting new blue light cameras.

I just had a tour where they're monitoring over 150 cameras and watched just a crime that was committed yesterday - theft of a handbag. And you could see the individuals, you could zoom in, but it was kind of grainy and it wasn't great. It turned out this technology is from 2005. So 20 years ago, you were ahead of your time. But time has passed. And it's time now for you to have the security money from the state to be able to acquire a whole new system, which is going to revolutionize the ability for the communications between the dispatch and people on the grounds and those operating the drones to be able to hopefully prevent crimes in the future.

So these cameras will be a game changer, and as I mentioned live footage is just amazing to see, but I know it can be enhanced even better. And this also gives a chance for first responders and paramedics to get on the scene faster so they have a better chance of saving lives. So this is an important part of a holistic approach that I have to law enforcement and public safety. And we've made major investments. There's no talk of ever defunding law enforcement under my watch. We've allocated over $3 billion just in the four years that I've been Governor of this great state. And with that money, we've bolstered initiatives that have been supported here in Rochester - the Gun Involved Violence Elimination Initiative, our SNUG Street outreach programs. As I mentioned, people sometimes have been through the system themselves. They're the best advocates to go back to the streets and help young people find a different path than they were on.

Project Rise, as well as our crime analysis centers. When I first became Governor, we had a handful of them. Now we have 11. And this is a tool for every law enforcement agency across the state to partner with us to have data analyzed very quickly and really connect the dots from what might be seen in one county. Perhaps it's people dealing with trafficked guns, or human trafficking - we can connect them all across the state.

So these are unprecedented investments, but that alone wasn't enough. We actually had to make some changes to laws that had been put in place well intended, but had gone to a place where it made it too difficult for law enforcement to keep communities safe. That's why we fought hard. I fought hard for stronger bail laws in two consecutive legislative sessions. Just recently, we passed stronger discovery laws with the support of DAs from all across the state so we can make sure that justice is received for defendants, but also for victims. And to stop the number of cases that were being just dismissed on very minor technicalities.

We also have the strongest red flag laws in the entire country, which keep guns out of the hands of those who would do harm to themselves or to others. And I'm really proud that all these efforts are finally paying off - that the trajectory that we had seen just a few short years ago, and indeed even a year ago, of crime rates all going up have taken a dramatic turn in the other direction.

Let's just talk about Rochester compared to last year. Overall crime is down 18 percent; violent crime is down 25 percent; murders are down 50 percent; and robberies are down to 32 percent. And, as I mentioned, I was here a year ago - actually there was a number of times I came here, maybe three or four times - where we convened all the law enforcement agencies from the U.S. Attorney on down, and sat and talked about some of the challenges we face. And one of the more recent ones had been car thefts.

And it was in Rochester that I came and said, "What is going on here? How is this possible that this is some of the highest car theft rates in the entire nation?" And it turned out that there was this TikTok challenge video, and a lot of young people were making very stupid decisions and using technology glitches that allowed them to steal Hyundais and Kias. So we came here and I want to point out one very happy statistic - that car thefts in this area are down 68 percent since 2023 when we launched this initiative. So it shows that we zero in using technology, using the resources, the man and woman power, and having a state that is there to support, we can make a real difference.

Let's just look at the first nine months of this year compared to 2021 when I first took over. Shooting incidents in Rochester - they were skyrocketing - are down 57 percent, and shooting victims are down 60 percent. That's extraordinary because it was a time when it seemed like those numbers were never going to start turning downward - ever upward, it seemed - and now we're showing dramatic progress. And that means more people are healthy. They're not suffering from injuries, life-threatening injuries that they endured during a horrific crime, or the families that have to endure that empty seat as the holidays approach because they lost a loved one to gun violence.

That means there's real lives, more people living normal lives untouched by the specter of crime. So in my opinion, that's how you fight crime. You fund the police at record levels. You equip them with the best technology. You improve coordination between agencies. You engage young people before they head down the wrong path. And you change laws - make them laws that are rooted in common sense. I would also just point out that, in contrast to what we're doing here in the State of New York, with Washington, this is not what the federal government is doing for us.

They're wasting a lot of resources pulling together literally FBI agents who could be helping us fight terrorism, and crimes coming across the borders and the work that the FBI does - it's very important work. Many of them and others in law enforcement have now been converted to ICE agents because that has been the priority. The priority was supposed to be to go after the "worst of the worst," the "baddest of the bad," and that's not what we're seeing. We're not seeing it in the streets of Rochester. We're not seeing it in the rural farms and factories where the raids are occurring. We're not seeing it in the streets of New York.

So the federal government, contrary to what we're doing, they're wasting resources. They're targeting innocent individuals. They're sending masked ICE agents into our cities. And they're also defunding the police. And I had to point this out to the President on a phone call when he tried to cut $187 million in federal homeland security money, something that Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem wanted to happen.

She slashed crucial counter-terrorism funding here in the State of New York. And this is not just a concern in New York City. My husband used to be the United States Attorney. He's well familiar with some high profile cases we had right here in Buffalo and in Rochester, in particular. So they thought they could cut this money. I called up the President and said, "You really want to defund police? Not a good look." That would've also lost $900,000 from Monroe County Sheriff's Office as well - would have just taken it away. This also would've defunded our bomb squads, our tactical and canine teams as well.

So, we stepped in. We also have an Attorney General who stepped in to help take this to court.

And so, I just want the message out there: You touch our law enforcement money - which cripples our ability to fight the "worst of the worst" because that's who we are going after - you've got to get through us first. We'll rise up. We'll use our voices. We'll go to court and do whatever we can to ensure that the resources to a place like the Sheriff's Department, our local police departments and the State Police, as well as NYPD are always going to be there.

So we're not defunding police. We're prepared to fight back. And I will say we've come a long, long way. And despite talking about these very positive numbers, you'll never hear me say "mission accomplished" because there's always one more person out there trying to commit a crime. And that is why our job is never over. But I want to thank the men and women who've made this job so much better because there's more people living a crime-free experience - not being victims because of the efforts of the men and women who are members of our sworn police officers all across the state.

So to all of you, I'm grateful. These numbers are astounding. I'm very proud of them, but I'm never going to say "we're done." We have much more work to do, and you can count on me as a long-term partner in the effort to keep the great State of New York safe.

Contact the Governor's Press Office