Transcript: Mayor de Blasio and Commissioner Bratton Hold Media Availability

February 10, 2016

Mayor Bill de Blasio: We’re here to provide an update on the horrific incident that happened in Staten Island today – absolutely painful, painful incident that occurred. I’m going to go over with you what we know so far, I’m going to emphasize this is preliminary information. You’ll hear from Commissioner Bratton and Chief Boyce, and we want to talk about this issue and take questions on this, and then we’ll talk about other police matters.

I want to say at the beginning, as a parent there is nothing more horrible then the loss of a child. There’s nothing more horrible than the notion of an adult who would attack an innocent child. This is an atrocious crime, and I think every parent would share my view that our hearts break when we see innocent children attacked. And this family has gone through an unspeakable tragedy. We are going to talk today about the perpetrator. We need the public’s help immediately finding him. I am convinced we will bring him to justice very quickly, but we do want the public’s help right way. We know the identity and you’ll hear from the Commissioner and Chief on that.

NYPD is in the middle of a very aggressive investigation at this very moment. But the quick summation of these painful events: at approximately 10:00AM 9-1-1 received a call about a stabbing at the Ramada Inn in the Willowbrook neighborhood of Staten Island. Responding officers from the 1-2-1 Precinct arrived shortly after 10:00AM. They discovered four victims, a 28-year-old woman and her three young children. All four had suffered stab wounds and were immediately transported to Richmond University Medical Center. Very sorry to say that the mother was pronounced dead on arrival – one-year-old child pronounced dead shortly thereafter. We just heard, before we came into the room, adding to this tragedy that the five-month-old child has been pronounced dead. The final child – the two-year-old child is coming out of surgery now in critical but stable condition. Everyone at the hospital has been doing their all to try to save that child, and we thank them for their efforts and to all the first responders – NYPD and FDNY, our EMTs, we want to thank them for their efforts.

The mother and her – the mother and the children were homeless. They had been staying at the Ramada Inn in lieu of traditional shelter. They had been there since December 6th, 2015. So, just about two months. There are 28 remaining families – homeless families in this hotel. They are being relocated immediately. They will be relocated right now – they will not be staying at the hotel tonight. And we will discontinue use of that hotel. Let me now turn to the Commissioner and then the Chief to give you further updates.

Commissioner William Bratton, NYPD: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Chief of Detectives Bob Boyce will be giving you some specific details on the suspect that we are interested in apprehending as quickly as possible – that I think we can all agree this is an incredibly heinous crime, the attempt to murder this whole family. And we have, in addition to your assistance, using the technology that’s now available to us that the description of this suspect and his picture has been now circulated to 25,000 of our officers on their smartphones. So, with that, I’d like to turn it over to Chief Boyce who can give you more details on who we’re looking for. And, again, I would certainly encourage whatever attention you can give to this during your newscast. We want to get him. We want to get him very, very quickly, and get him off the streets as fast as we can.

Robert Boyce, Chief of Detectives, NYPD: Good morning ladies and gentlemen. We are looking for a Michael Sykes A.K.A. Michael Skyes. He is to my left here. He is a 23-year-old male. He is the father of one of the children that was murdered this morning. He is a – lives in the Howard Houses of the 7-3 Precinct. We have units over there right now searching for him. He has – criminal history – has no criminal history we have found, no psychological history that we can find – that’s identified to the Police Department. We do have an old criminal court summons that he got from a couple years ago, but outside of that, that’s all we have. He has one prior argument with the mother of the children, and that was from yesterday. They had an argument, and he took her phone yesterday at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon at the corner of Victory and O’Connor Avenue in the 1-2-1 Precinct. As the Mayor said, she’s been there since December 6th. He is the father of the youngest of the three children. There’s another father of the other two. Going forward right now, we have recovered what we believe to be the murder weapon at the scene. We did a timeline of events from this morning. We have all the three children, the mother and Mr. Sykes at a deli [inaudible] nearby on Victory Boulevard at about 7:30 in the morning. At about 8 o’clock in the morning they come back to the hotel – to the motel, excuse me, the Ramada Inn. He does not go inside the room. He stays in the hallway. We continue to pull back video and we find him going into the room about 8:50 in the morning. He leaves about four minutes later. So, we believe that’s when the attack happens. He then goes on – gets on a bus and takes it to the Staten Island Ferry. That’s where we are with the investigation right now. We’re still continuing to look for him. Like I said, we recovered the knife and there’s no prior, outside of yesterday, incidents between these two individuals – between the mother and [inaudible]. Right now, thank God the two-year-old looks like she’s going to make it – just came out of surgery. So, let’s all say prayers for her. Thanks.

Mayor: Thank you very much. I want to – before we take questions, again, first we want to take questions on this horrible incident and then we’ll take other police-related questions. But I want to emphasize to anyone out there who fears that they may be a victim of domestic violence that it is imperative to report the situation if you feel you’re in danger. It’s imperative to call 9-1-1. Anybody who believes that they could fall victim to domestic violence has to report it right away so we can help them. If you know of someone who is in danger we need that reported so we can help them. We know that’s it’s a very painful and difficult situation for so many people who are in a relationship to have to recognize that the person they’re in a relationship with maybe be a danger to them. But we urge anyone who feels afraid to let us know so we can help, so NYPD can intervene. In addition, the family justice centers are a resource that’s available to anyone who needs help – anyone fears that they may become a victim of domestic violence, or anyone who has been a victim of domestic violence and fears that it might happen again. We have family justice centers now in every borough and they’re there to help provide the support people deserve. With that we will take questions on this – yes, Rich?

Question: [Inaudible]

Chief Boyce: Immediately call 9-1-1, do not approach this male. And, we think he left a knife at the scene. And I failed to admit one thing, he called a family member at about 10:30 and admitted to the crime to the family member. So – and said he may take his own life, but we’ll see if that happens. Right now, I would suggest to everybody call 9-1-1 if you see him. If you know his whereabouts, call the tips number, and we’ll go to that location. 

Mayor: Why don’t you say the tip number again just so they have it.           

Chief Boyce: Yeah, it’s 577-TIPS.

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: I’ll let the Chief talk about any issues that I don’t have an update on. I can tell you this particular hotel had overnight security, but not from what we understand at the moment of this instance. In other words, the security they had was focused on the overnight hours. We are going to, today, make clear to all the hotels we work with – it’s 41 hotels at this point citywide – that starting tomorrow we will offer security to them that they can have in their buildings through the Department of Homeless Services. That will be available immediately at no charge to the hotel. Now to remind you, the hotels are private property. So, the hotel management has to make a decision to accept security on their property. But, we will make clear that it will be made available to them on an ongoing basis at no expense to them, starting tomorrow. It will be up to each one of them to make that choice. We’ll certainly encourage them to take that security and utilize it, and obviously it will all be closely coordinated with the NYPD as well.    

Question: This incident happened inside [inaudible] hotels?

Mayor: Correct.

Question: Are you guys going to be able to eliminate [inaudible]?

Mayor: There’s two areas where we intend to reduce use of facilities – we announced in December that we would reduce the use of cluster facilities and we would phase them out entirely as quickly as possible. And we laid out a three-year timeline about the goal areas to go as quickly as possible and to close down as many clusters as we can, as quickly as we can. We also intend to utilize hotels less and less and as quickly as possible, to stop using hotels. That is our goal. There will be moments when because there is a particular need we may have to turn to hotels but, the goal is to use hotels less and less and eventually stop using hotels altogether. This particular location will not be used again.

Question: But the three others, [inaudible]?

Mayor: They fall under the rubric on the 90-day review that we are undertaking right now with Homeless Services. We will develop a specific strategy for getting out of the use of hotels across the board. But what I’m saying is the goal in the short-term is to reduce the use of hotels intensely.

Question: Was the young woman in the shelter for reasons related to domestic violence?

Mayor: I’m going to see if – does Deputy Mayor Palacio or Commissioner Banks want to answer that?

Commissioner Steven Banks, Human Resources Administration: No. She was not there based on that reason. She was like so many families that come to us as a result of economic reasons so, she sought shelter and was provided with it.

Question: Was the suspect in this case entitled to stay with the family pursuing the homeless services? 

Mayor: Well let me clarify – and Chief may know the answer – I don’t think we have an indication that he was staying with the family. Can you clarify?

Chief Boyce: A lot of this investigation is incomplete right now. We don’t have a family member, that’s why we are not releasing their names. So, we don’t have her side of the story right now. So, we’ll find out, but as far as I know he was staying there. He did visit yesterday and that happened – that incident where he took her phone happened off the motel, so the motel probably didn’t know about this until the police responded at that location to speak to her. So, right now it’s incomplete. We don’t know her whole story, what the relationship was, was it rocky – with nothing on record that we have [inaudible].

Question: Mayor, how will the city use this particular [inaudible] were there any incidents at all?

Mayor: Steve?

Commissioner Banks: This hotel has been used by the Department of Homeless Services – not all the rooms, but the rooms that were used – since August of 2015. And there have been no other incidences of violence there that have been reported to us.

Mayor: Yes?

Question: [inaudible] policy for [inaudible] domestic violence victims in facilities without security?

Mayor: Is there is a special protocol for domestic violence victims?

Commissioner Banks: For a family that seeks shelter from the Department of Homeless Services and identifies, or there’s information indicating that person is a survivor of domestic violence, that family is evaluated for placement in a special HRA domestic violence shelter. And if there isn’t capacity at that particular moment, the family is placed in a Department of Homeless Services shelter. As the mayor previously announced, we’re adding an additional 700 domestic violence beds, and that’s addressing a need that’s built up over many years in terms of additional domestic violence beds. I want to highlight, again, here that there was no indication of any incident involving domestic violence when this woman was placed in this particular hotel with her children in December.

Question: [Inaudible]

Chief Boyce: I’m not going to comment on tracing that phone right now. We don’t know why because she’s not around to tell us, obviously. So, we’re not sure exactly what the nature of the dispute was that he took her phone.

Question: Do you know if they were living together prior to the [inaudible].

Chief Boyce: Again, I only have half a story right now, we don’t have a lot so I can’t tell you that.

Question: I just wanted to [inaudible] we know that he has no prior arrests. Does she have any previous calls or court records where domestic violence was involved?

Chief Boyce: I’ll answer that question with, no, not with – not with this individual. And that’s – you know, I don’t want to go into her past, she’s the victim of a crime.

Mayor: Questions?

Question: No restraining order?

Mayor: Not that we know of, right? No restraining order?

Chief Boyce: None.

Mayor: No restraining order.

Question: The father of the other two children – is there any history there with regard to her relationship with him?

Mayor: In terms of domestic violence?

Question: Yeah.

Mayor: Okay, again, I’m going to turn to Dr. Palacio and Commissioner Banks. Do we have any history of domestic violence involving this individual?

Deputy Mayor Herminia Palacio, Health and Human Services: Again, we – this is a victim of the crime, and right now we’ve been focusing on the perpetrator of this crime. We have no evidence, no prior history while she was in our care of any issues of domestic violence with this individual.

Mayor: Or with others [inaudible].

Question: How did you find out about this, and how much time went by between the crime happening and the [inaudible]?

Chief Boyce: As I said, we believe the crime happened at around 8:50 to 8:54. That chambermaid who found the mother and three children happened about – left at 10 o’clock – said they were in there a little over an hour.

Question: Can you describe the weapon for us? And also give me the nature of the injury of the [inaudible].

Chief Boyce: I don’t want to go into that right now, Jonathan. The autopsy hasn’t been done. We’re only a couple of hours out, but we did recover a rather large kitchen knife. It looks – and it’s full of blood. So, it looks to be the murder weapon.

Question: It looks like from what you said, that there was overnight security coverage, but by 10 o’clock that coverage had lapsed or gone away?

Mayor: Right – the protocol that the hotel used was they had overnight security, but not daytime security.

Question: When did the [inaudible] security leave [inaudible]?

Mayor: To the best of my knowledge it was until 6:00AM they had. So from 10:00PM to 6:00AM, 7 days a week they had a security guard on site for the overnight.

Yeah?

Question: Should there have been some DHS or city provided security during the day as is the case in other traditional shelters and motels, which are being used?

Mayor: Well again, I think, as Commissioner Banks said we had had no incident previously that suggested need for security, but what we’re going to do starting today is indicate to every hotel that we’re working with, which is 41 hotels citywide right now, that we will provide security to them. They have to agree to accept it, but we will have it on site 24 hours and available to them.

Question: Do they have to initiate the request?

Mayor: No, we’re, literally, reaching out to all 41 hotels and saying security will be on site tomorrow if you agree to let us on your premises.

Question: Is that security going to be like Allied Barton or NYPD?

Mayor: It’s going to be Department of Homeless Services contracted security.

Do you want to?

Last call, anything on this topic then we want to talk about other police matters. Go ahead?

Question: This has happened in a Ramada, which is – is kind of like a budget hotel. The walls are thin, I’ve stayed at one before. And this is at around 8:50 in the morning. No one heard anything? No screaming?

Mayor: We don’t know who was around –

Chief Boyce: That’s correct. Right now, I don’t have an ear witness or an eyewitness to these homicides. Right now we don’t. So, I don’t know if they’re sleeping – it’s hard to tell right now.

Question: Just to be clear, when you [inaudible] in domestic violence – no ACS history with this family or this individual?

Mayor: Again, there’s always confidentiality issues that we will remind you of, but I might make a broad statement. We have no indication of anything that would have suggested this kind of incident.

Okay, last call. Anything on this, please?

Question: What’s the total number of people that you have moving in these motels?

Mayor: Overall?

Question: Yeah, and if you could just [inaudible] by single adults [inaudible].

Mayor: I’ll tell you what I have, and Dr. Palacio and Commissioner Banks might want to add. 41 hotels today, and again this varies, literally, by the night because when we can use hotels less we always use them less. 41 hotels, at this moment – 2,656 people – homeless people in those hotels, 637 are children. The length of stay is limited. It’s two weeks or so, typically – on average. Again, our goal is to increasingly no longer use those hotels.

Yeah?

Question: You said the [inaudible].

Mayor: Average – key word average. Sometimes there’s a longer situation depending on the individual.

Question: Can you tell us why?

Mayor: As we have more information.

Last call on this issue?

Other police matters?

Question: [Inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: You’ve got to speak up, nobody can hear you.

Question: Sorry.

[Laughter]

Question: The Daily News did a series [inaudible] and I was wondering [inaudible] something needed to change?

Mayor: I’ll start and turn to the Commissioner. Look, our first responsibility is to protect public safety. And when we know a location is being used that that will endanger people’s lives, we know a location is being used for either violent activities, drug dealing, etcetera, we have to deal with it aggressively. At the same time, we absolutely believe in due process – and every individual’s right to a fair hearing and a fair adjudication of their situation. So, that’s the broad standard that we hold and the balance to always to strive to meet. Let me turn it over to the Commissioner for the details.

Commissioner Bratton: First off, the civil enforcement nuisance abatement program is a key component of this department and the city’s abilities and capabilities to deal with nuisances ranging from prostitution to drug-related complaints. You may also recall the recent initiative against bodegas dealing with K-2. That was conducted by our Civil Enforcement Unit. So, I’m going to ask Deputy Commissioner for Legal Matters Larry Byrne to come up and speak to you about the issue of nuisance abatement by our Civil Enforcement Unit. The article that you’re referring to in the Daily News had a lot of misrepresentations – misinformation and we are in a position to rebut most of it. Daily News is also going to have to figure out what they want us to do. The editorial a couple months ago, castigating that we weren’t doing enough to evict people. This article is now castigating us because we’re evicting too many people. So, I know there’s been change of leadership at the Daily News, but in any event, figure it out in terms of what your position actually is. We’ll make very clear what our position is. I have talked with the Speaker, I have talked with the head of City Council Public Safety, I have talked with the Public Advocate, all of whom were reached out to on Sunday by the Daily News, and asked to make comment on a story that they knew very little about. We will be presenting presentations to all of them to update them on this very significant and very successful program. It is one that we have a great deal of interest in. However, like all programs, that – we are taking a fresh look at it, and are very happy to work with all of our elected officials to take a look at the things that we might want to adjust. One of those areas that we have adjusted very quickly in conversations – Zachary Carter, the Corporation Counsel for the city, is the issue of [inaudible] elements of this program, which we will be changing very quickly. And Larry Byrne will discuss those briefly, so that, again this is something that we are very happy to address, and very happy to address in a very public way – that this is a program that we have a lot of investment in and one that is very critical to helping to keep this city safe. So, Larry if you could – and just give a little background on this, thank you.

Lawrence Byrne, Deputy Commissioner for Legal Matters, NYPD: Good afternoon, everyone. So as Commissioner Bratton said this is a long standing program. It was actually recognized with an award as a model government program in innovation by the Kennedy School for Government at Harvard in 1995. The basic procedure of how it goes with all of the court protections that come with this program haven’t changed. We’ve been doing this the same way for years and years under layers of judicial scrutiny, which I’ll briefly lay out for you. Picking up on the Commissioner’s initial point, with regard to the news story on Sunday, it is factually inaccurate and deliberately misleading in many respects. But in a prior article the Daily News, very clearly, actually articulated the problem that nuisance abatements – civil nuisance abatement is designed to address. And this was something they published in December of 2015 when the news said that they – being drug dealers and criminals – are the pestilence of housing, repeat offenders who live in apartments selling drugs, shooting at each other, and just plain terrorizing working people, seniors and families, trying to live their lives in peace. And then went on the lay out all the things the city and the Police Department should be doing to exclude and evict these repeat recidivist criminals who arte terrorizing their neighbors. So, that statement by the news we certainly agree with and have been enforcing for over 20 years in this city.

To put the procedure in context, today in New York City, there are almost 3.5 million private residences. Those include private apartments, apartments in NYCHA public housing facilities, private homes, brownstones with multiple dwellings. For the three-year period, 2013 to 2015 we bought a total of just over 2,600 civil nuisance abatement actions – 2,609 to be precise. Much more than 50 percent of those was directed between commercial locations – over 1,400. These are clubs and bars engaging in unlicensed sale of alcohol. We had an incident in the Bronx back in December where one of these clubs – there was a massive shooting where bystanders were injured and killed. That’s a club we would close. As the Commissioner said, all of the K-2 being illegally distributed last summer out of various commercial establishments – the Council has since enacted a penal law that makes that a crime, but it was not at the time. So, we used the civil nuisance abatement tool to really get out in front of the K-2 problem. And as a result of those actions, in the months that followed, K-2 emergency room visits dropped dramatically. As for the civil enforcement in the residential context, and this includes both NYCHA public housing apartments and private residences, we filed over that three-year period – just over 1,100 of those actions. Of those 1,100 actions over 1,000 involved repeated drug sales, and I want to stress repeated. I’m going to explain to you what we have to show under the statute and that this is persistent, pervasive criminal activity, not an isolated crime. Of the drug cases involved, over 80 percent involve crack, heroin, or cocaine. Another 50 of those cases involved either guns or other acts of violence. So, it’s a pretty significant problem. Of the residences that we used nuisance abatement against – and I want to come back to that because this is an action against the facility repeatedly being used for criminal activity to the detriment of everybody who lawfully lives in that facility, and lives around the facility – the neighbors down the hall, the house next door. 124 involved apartments in NYCHA buildings and over 1,000 were private residences throughout the city.

So, what do we do and what does it require? The Daily News talks about a series of raids. They’re not raids at all. There are two different types of court orders that we obtain before a judge and we enforce. First requirement is that within a 12-month period there has to be at least three criminal acts in the location. So, in the typical drug case what this involves are purchases of illegal narcotics inside the apartment or the residence. After a certain number of purchases – it could be two, it could be three, it could be four or more – we then will go before a judge, ex parte as we do in criminal cases and ask the judge to give us a search warrant. In order to get a search warrant the judge has to find that probable cause exists to believe that evidence of the crime is located in that location. Once we execute that search warrant – a lawful court order – if we recover further evidence of criminal activity, drugs, weapons, ammunition, which we always do, we then will proceed if possible to arrest people responsible for that criminal activity – people in the apartment who are tied to the drugs, and people who previously sold us the drugs. But when we do the search warrant the people who’ve previously sold us the drugs are not always in the apartment at the time of the search warrant. And the criminal prosecution goes on its way. Most of these cases, by the way, in terms of both the criminal and the nuisance abatement originate with what we call kites – complaints from people in the building that drugs are being sold out of apartment 2A, shootings are taking place out of apartment 3C. So, most of this activity is not self-initiated. It is in response to direct community complaints, neighbors, residents, people who feel victimized by this activity including some of the residents of the own apartments where it’s taken place – something we commonly encounter. So, once we’ve executed the criminal part of the process we draw up papers, we go back before a different judge, and we now have to make another showing before that judge that this location has been subject to repeated criminal activity. And if the judge agrees with us, and we meet our legal burden, we get a court order which allows us to go out to that residence and to close it. The way we do that in reality is we will go to the residence – we know the people we’ve suspected have engaged in criminal activity there, we know the people like the grandmother or the young child or the sibling – the younger sibling who’ve done nothing wrong. And we will give the people who engaged in no wrongdoing the opportunity to stay in that residence, but we will exclude from that residence what the court order tells us to do, which is the people engaged in criminal activity. Once that process takes place everybody connected to that residence, the tenants, the people who are staying there legally or illegally – in the case of a private residence – the landlord, the management company, are all given the opportunity to come back to court within a very short period of time and contest what we did or have a settlement discussion. In many of these instances, including some of the cases the Daily News describes incompletely, the landlord and the private residences had already commenced eviction proceedings and were suing the tenants to recover unpaid rent, and getting them out of the building for engaging in criminal activity in violation of the leases. The landlords don’t have as expedited civil enforcement nuisance abatement tool that has been given to the government by law to address more quickly this issue. So, many of the settlements that the Daily News refers to were cases where the people were about to be evicted by the private landlords and had no defense. So, they simply cut their losses.

Mayor: Okay, you’ve got to breathe for a minute.

Deputy Commissioner Byrne: So, in terms of the exclusions from the over 1,100 cases we filed against residences – in 157 there’s what’s called a total vacate order. So, everyone involved in that residence was involved in illegal activity, they have to leave. Another 349, the vast majority, was only a partial vacate. So, the son, the three brothers – the one selling the drugs have to leave. The rest of the family got to stay. In some instances – and this is as a result of the settlements – there was a no vacate order because we were satisfied that the people who engaged in the criminal activity were no longer living there. And in the large number of instances there was no settlement at all – and let me give you an example of that – many of these locations don’t have any lawful tenant or regular tenant, they’re vacate buildings, they’re vacant apartments. They’re being used by squatters, they’re being used by people who come and go to sell drugs there. And there’s no landlord, there’s no lease, there’s no building, there’s nobody to settle with to get a vacate order. So, that’s an overview of what we did out of 3.4 million private residences in New York City. We went against 1,100 and those are the numbers that we’ve done. So, there’s a judicial order at the start, a judicial order at the end. But as the Commissioner said, we will be reviewing this process to make sure if we can make it stronger and make it work better – we will do that.

Mayor: Other questions?

Question: There was apparently a stabbing on Empire Boulevard in Crown Heights, possibly a hate crime. How is it being investigated?

Mayor: We’re very concerned about that. We’re looking at it as a potential hate crime. I’ll let Chief Boyce step in, but we’re taking that one very seriously.

Chief Boyce: At about 11:40 this morning, in front of 6-4-6 Empire Boulevard a 25-year-old Hasidic male was walking on the street when someone came up behind him and stabbed him in the back. He then ran to a location, called 9-1-1. He was removed to Kings County Hospital where he suffered a collapsed lung. I have a picture of this individual that we believe right now to be the perpetrator. It’s right up top on the screen. No words prior, no argument, no bump as far as we can say from what we got from this individual. He is dressed in Hasidic garb. Right now, we’re looking at it as a possible hate crime because he’s dressed in that fashion, that’s why we’re looking at it, not because it is. But we’ll go forward. This fellow right here, he seems to be the perpetrator. Tough to figure out who he is because you really can’t see his face, but there’s other video in the street. We’ll go forward and see if we can get better – a better shot of him right now. And that’s where we are with the case – black jacket, blue hooded sweatshirt, fled southbound on Albany toward Lefferts Boulevard. And that’s the last we see him. So, we’ll go forward and see if we can get more video – more [inaudible] video to see if we can get him identified.

Question: This question is for Commissioner Bratton, and I apologize if you’ve been asked about this already, the jury is deliberating in the trial of Officer Peter Liang. The defense has said that a conviction would [inaudible] create a chilling effect for your officers. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Commissioner Bratton: Sorry, I did not hear your question relative to that trial. What was the question please?

Question: The defense if there was a conviction in the case that it could create a chilling effect for your officers. I’m wondering what your –

Commissioner Bratton: I’m not going to speak to any of that. That’s his opinion. So, again, not going to comment on the trial that’s still underway – jury is deliberating. So, that’s his opinion.

Question: This is, I guess, for the mayor. Have you been updated at all about the status of the inquiry into the crane collapse? There have been some suggestions that the [inaudible] may have been more of a factor.

Mayor: As you know, it’s a very serious investigation. NYPD is involved, Department of Investigations, Buildings Department. There’s numerous angles that are being looked at here, including a forensic investigation related to the equipment itself. So, when we have anything definitive we will certainly announce it, but we’re not going to speculate until that investigation is complete.

Thank you, everyone.