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Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Holds Media Availability

September 7, 2021

Video available at: https://youtu.be/ygkJ1asrDSs


Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good morning, everybody. For months and months now, we've been focused on the recovery in New York City. New Yorkers have been doing amazing things, bringing back this city. The City government's been working hand in hand with the people of this city on what will be a comeback for the ages. That is the year-and-a-half we've been fighting COVID, and you can see the life of the city coming back. You can see the extraordinary things that New Yorkers have done to achieve this comeback. You can see economy coming back, so much that matters. We’ve got a long way to go, but we've proven each to the other what New Yorkers are capable of. And then, in the middle of that, another setback, it's almost impossible to imagine how with a pandemic that we haven't seen in a century, even worse than anything we've ever seen before, how we could have then yet another horrible incident as we saw with Hurricane Ida and the impact it’s had on so many New Yorkers. Literally, the all-time record for rainfall in a single hour and the entire recorded history in New York City, on top of the pandemic and everything else we've been through. And this is very personal, what it means for so many New Yorkers, what it has meant for their lives.

Yesterday, in Queens, touring with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Congress Member Ocasio-Cortez, and our FEMA Administrator – used to be our Emergency Management Commissioner – Deanne Criswell, we saw really painful, gut-wrenching realities. Families who had put their all into their homes and had sustained thousands or tens of thousands of dollars of damage in the course of just minutes. And what they all described was the same thing, the sudden rush of water like nothing they've ever seen before. The possessions that were lost are one thing. The cost is one thing. The human reality, the priceless, sentimental items that people love, their photos, the things that remind them of their family, those things that were lost are the worst in so many ways. And now, you see families struggling. They've been through so much with COVID, and now they're trying to figure out how to overcome this, how to fix their basements, how to clean up, how to fight the mold, all the things that people need to do. Thank God, we're getting support now from the federal government, because what's clear is we're going to fight back yet again – that's what we do – and the federal government's really with us. I want to thank President Biden. He's coming in later his day. I appreciate him coming here. I appreciate even more that he signed the disaster declaration that now will allow real resources to flow into the hands of New Yorkers affected by the storm. This is a great example, and President Biden and his whole team, Deanne Criswell, everyone deserves credit. This was fast and focused, getting us the help we need – no hesitation – and it's going to make a huge difference for homeowners and small business owners who have been hit so hard.

The City is going to do everything possible we can do. We're going to go the extra mile as well to help anyone effected by the storm and provide them support in a variety of ways. I want to talk about that now. But first, I want to say, one of the things that would have been a horrible catch 22 is that folks who are hit by this horrible disaster and now have to fix their homes, fix their basements, if going to do that work to make their lives whole again and make their families able to live in their homes, if they had to pay fees to the City simply and make those repairs, that would have been unconscionable. And we're talking about serious fees for homeowners, for small business owners. When you do construction on your home or business, just getting those permits can be $100 to $1,200 for each, and we don't want to see anyone have to pay for a permit who's just been through a horrible disaster. So, I'm going to sign an executive order now, making clear that any New Yorker who's doing work on their home, on their business because of the damage sustained on Wednesday night should not have to pay any fees for the permits to do that work. We want to make it easy. We want to make it free for people to do what they have to do to get back on their feet.

[Mayor de Blasio signs executive order]

This goes into effect immediately. I wanted to give this relief to New Yorkers and I want to talk about all the other forms of relief that we're going to provide. First of all, some families – thank God, relatively few, but some families were unable to go back into their homes. We're providing temporary shelter for free. We're working with the Red Cross. We're going to make sure that people need that shelter have it. We also want to make sure – and anybody who needs that help, it's not going to be something that's taken away. We're going to do multiple weeks for homeowners and for renters who have been put out of their home because of the storm. We want to make sure that people are safe. While we're helping them to get their home back, we want to make sure they're situated. Also, we're going to help with emergency water pumping. This has been going on for days. I want to affirm to anyone out there who still has water to pump that you can depend on the Department of Environmental Protection and Sanitation to come over and do that for free. You don't need to hire someone if you're unable to. If you prefer to, that's your choice. But if you're unable to, or you'd rather that the City do it, you can call 3-1-1, and we'll come over, get the water pumped out.

Also, in terms of the kind of relief people need – so, we talked about how we can get people housing if they need it, get their basements pumped out if they need it. A lot of people lost really basic stuff. They lost clothing that was in their basements. They lost personal items. The Red Cross is working with us to provide debit cards up to $515 per household just to get some immediate cash in people's hands for just the basics. And the Red Cross will come over to your home and provide that support directly. Another organization, Met Council, doing amazing work. They're providing one-time payments of one month's rent for New Yorkers who need it, regardless of immigration status. I want to thank the Red Cross. I want to thank the Met Council. Two extraordinary organizations that are always there for New Yorkers in their time of need. This is direct, immediate support right now. Now, any New Yorker, hearing the things we're talking about, you say, how do I take advantage of that? How do I get that help? All you have to do is call 3-1-1. We want to get this help to you quickly and easily. And then, there's some bigger help on the way, thank God, and that comes from FEMA, the federal help. But you’ve got to apply for that. We want to make sure that every New Yorker who qualifies can apply right away. That's up to $36,000 in direct grants – not loans, grants. You did not need to pay them back. It's direct cash to help you to make up for what you've lost. The President is going to be speaking about this more today. And again, this is to his great credit that he made this available so quickly. Anyone who needs these direct cash payments from FEMA, you can call 3-1-1, or go on the FEMA disaster relief website, disasterassistance.gov. We're going to let people know all the ways they could apply directly, but we don't want to take the chance that someone who needs the help doesn't hear about it, doesn't get the help they need. So, we're launching a door-to-door canvassing effort in the areas affected most by the storm. Our Public Engagement Unit has been deployed already to go out into communities, literally go door-to-door, make sure people have all the information they need in whatever language they need it in, help people fill out the application, whatever it takes. We don't want to see anyone go without this support. We want to make sure every single dollar gets to the people who need it.

There will also be a paid canvas effort with community organizations. We found this worked very effectively with the Census. We engage local commuter organizations who knew their communities, knew the people, spoke the language to go out and do that door-to-door work. It was one of the reasons the Census effort was so strong. We're going to do that again in this disaster relief effort. And we're going to be working with a variety of agencies to make sure that everyone is out there from Public Engagement Unit, from the community organizations has the information they need. So, Emergency Management, Sanitation, Environmental Protection, Buildings, everyone will be working together to get the information out to the homeowners and business owners. Of course, Small Business Services will be deeply involved. And to make sure, if there's questions or concerns, that we get quick responses back to the New Yorkers who need that information. I want you to hear from someone who represents a part of the Bronx that was hit hard by the storm. He has been a strong voice for small businesses. He's also been a strong voice for folks who have been hit the hardest in many cases, the small homeowners, folks with a single-family home or a two-family home who are really suffering right now who need this assistance immediately. It's my pleasure to introduce Council Member Mark Gjonaj.

[…]

Mayor: Thank you so much, Council Member. And Council Member, I know you're going to be out there talking to the small business owners, as you always do, talking to the homeowners. We’ve got to make sure everyone gets every last dollar that they need and every kind of help from the City government. So, we've got a lot to do in the here and now. But I agree with you also, we've got a big task – literally, a generational task for all of us to address the infrastructure needs that are going to be greater than anything ever imagined in our history. And again, thank God, our colleagues in Washington are really working to get us the resources we need. But we're going to have immense work to do ahead. Thank you very much for all you're doing on the ground in your district.

Now, important to note, everyone, we're going to be constantly communicating when we see any situation with the weather, because, again, we're going to be very, very careful to tell New Yorkers when we see any weather coming what it means, what it could mean even far beyond what we're being told it could mean and projecting ahead. This report for tonight, thank God, at this moment sounds very, very limited, but we're going to monitor it closely. What we're being told right now by the National Weather Service is to expect a half-inch to one inch of rain – a half-inch to one inch of rain in the overnight and thunderstorms potentially. But again, we're going to watch throughout the day and have that dynamic changes – if we see this storm start to pick up, we're going to be alerting people carefully, because we are constantly going to be aware. Mother nature is now throwing us curve balls like never before. We are seeing things, literally, unimaginable, things we've never seen. We're going to address that with a different kind of public information, going forward.

Okay. Now, people are digging out. People are getting back on their feet. That's what New Yorkers do. We are recovering once again – a recovery within a recovery. But let's go to the big picture, this fight against COVID, which New Yorkers are waging so well. The numbers are really, really impressive. Right now, as of today, 5.5 million New Yorkers who've had at least one dose of the vaccine. That's making a huge, huge difference, and more every single day. But we've also talked about not only public health, but public safety. All of this is necessary for the full recovery of New York City. And again, we will achieve a full recovery. And then we're going to surpass where we were before the pandemic. Public safety is absolutely essential. Recovery will help us achieve greater public safety, but public safety is necessary to recovery. They absolutely go hand-in-hand. And we have been for years and years and years, the safest big city in America. That is our destiny. That continues to be what we are, what we will be, no matter what is thrown at us. And I want to give tremendous respect to the men and women of the NYPD for the way they've handled this summer, and to community partners of all kinds who stepped up. We were faced with a great unknown this summer after the horror of last year, everything that happened in the city. We didn't know what the summer would be like, but we knew the people of the city would do everything in their power, and community organizations stepped forward, violence, interrupters stepped forward. And then, at the same time, the men and women of the NYPD outdid themselves, did amazing work, fought through the adversity, showed a lot of grit and a lot of commitment. I really want to honor them. We said at the beginning of the summer with the Safe Summer NYC strategy, it was going to be about those investments in the community, about re-bonding police and community. It was going to be about targeted precision policing, which is such a strength in the NYPD, and making sure the right resources were in the right places. And, of course, it was going to be about our court system, where we've seen some elements of progress, but clearly need more. But nonetheless, overall, we've seen these pieces coming together.

We're going to talk about what we saw in the month of August. And the good news is, New York City is turning the corner when it comes to public safety. We’ve got a lot more to go. Let me be clear from the beginning, everyone up here, you're going to hear from the Commissioner, you're going to hear from the Chief. One crime is one crime too many for all of us. And we have big challenges ahead, particularly in the Bronx. We'll certainly talk about that. There's a lot more work to be done there. But we've also seen some striking progress and progress that gives us a lot of hope for the future. In the month of August, we saw the shootings continue to go down. And in the month of August 2021, compared to August 2020 – so, the month-to-month comparison, shootings down almost 31 percent; shooting victims, almost 30 percent; and murder down almost 9 percent. That's a really big step in the right direction. And overall index crime, which means all the major crimes combined, a 5.4 percent decline compared to last August. And year-to-date, another crucial way of thinking about it – this year to-date, compared to last year to-date, overall index crime down. We have a lot to do, but we saw the incredible resiliency of the NYPD. We saw the impact of its actions. Here's something quite striking – in the month of August, we saw robberies down. In fact, it is the second lowest August for robberies since CompStat began in 1994. So, even with all the challenges – a global pandemic and everything else we're fighting back, the NYPD managed to achieve something it's only achieved one other time in the last almost 30 years. That is amazing. And that's a harbinger of good things to come.

We talk about the statistics, but we know it's about people. And our goal is that every single New Yorker is protected and no one has to feel the effect of crime. It takes immense work, but we have been and continue to be the safest big city in America. And it's really important to understand there was so much pain after COVID. All over the country, it manifested in so many horrible ways, including an uptick in crime and violence all over this nation. And yet, New York City in terms of big cities in this country is the lowest when it comes to overall index crime. That position remains strong. We've got a lot more to do, but you can see that when it comes to what's happening in other cities versus here, this city always fights back, and uses all our strengths to make people safe. We have a lot more to do, and what's missing – that fully functioning court system is still missing. And there could be lots of reasons, but we've got to solve the problem immediately. And the City of New York will do anything and everything in our power to solve it, because without a fully functioning court system there are not consequences. Without consequences, people commit crime who might not have otherwise if they feared those consequences – it's as simple as that. We need accountability. It's a small number of people who commit the crimes and cause the violence. They need to know they will be held accountable. That's why we're also passionate about bringing the court system back fully – fully for all crimes.

I want you to hear about this month of August, what it means to us overall, and the things we're going to do going forward. I want to give a lot of credit to our Commissioner. It's been an exceedingly tough mission. When he took this job, no one told him about a global pandemic. But we have fought our way back and we will continue to. We're turning this tide. I want to give a lot of appreciation to our Commissioner of the NYPD Dermot Shea.

Police Commissioner Dermot Shea: I think you told me it would be a piece of cake when I took the job.

Mayor: Fun and easy, that's what I said. Fun and easy.

Commissioner Shea: Well, good morning, everyone. And I'm joined here by our Chief of Department Rodney Harrison. And I’ve got to say, it was a busy weekend here in New York City, not a lot of sleep. But as little sleep as I got, Rodney got less. He was out there all weekend and really leading from the front. And I just wanted to acknowledge the work that he put in. So, it's hard to believe that it's the other side of Labor Day now. When you look at where we are as a city, the Mayor touched on some of the crime stats. I'll let Rodney get deeper into detail, but I would highlight, first and foremost, when you look at when the summer started, and the Mayor alluded to some people had a lot of concerns about the summer and rightfully so. At the end of May, we were up about 250 shootings for this year through the first five months of the year with the summer approaching. And we know that the summer is always a challenging time here. I am happy to report that this is now three months in the bank where we have really turned the corner in terms of pushing back on that violence with all of our partners. And let's be clear, it's not a one-man team here, it's a lot of people pulling in the right direction, working together. But this is now three months in a row, June, July, and August. As we sit here today, we've cut that 250 shootings, now we are 37 shootings. And the expectation is 100 percent that when we finish this year, we're going to string together month after month of reducing shootings. That's our task in front of us and I firmly believe we're going to accomplish that.

So, three months in, September has started, the first six days, we’re down in shootings in September, and we expect that is going to continue. How is it happening? Well, I mentioned, it's a lot of work, and I'll speak specifically to the guns. I mean, we continue to take guns off the street at a really significant pace. The Mayor mentioned the court system. I mean, the consequences are critical here. We need to have a court system that's functioning from the beginning, right through the grand juries, right through to the end so that criminals unfortunately know that they have to face those consequences, for that small number that's carrying those guns. But that's going to be critical as we move forward to get what we want to be, not just reducing verse last year, getting to where we were historically and pushing it even further.

I'd also like to mention some of the other work that we've done this summer. And when you look at the work that we've done with kids throughout New York City, Mr. Mayor, you know, with a lot of resources coming to us, NYPD cops with community partners, literally, taking over parks and saying this park is for the kids. And we've had an amazing summer between the programming with Kevin O'Connor, and Jeff Maddrey, and Juanita Holmes, and Rodney's people, with the sports programs, with the art programs that we've done with the – just setting down our flag and saying, this park is for the kids. It's really, it's really been a positive effect. And you've seen that translate to, I think, some of the relations that we've had in that – building trust with community partners, which I like to think is – we've come a long way since last year, and we're going to continue to build upon that. So, I think there's a lot of positive. For all the numbers, I'm going to turn it now to Rodney Harrison. But I think the key takeaways here is, down in crime in August, the Mayor alluded to them, significantly down in the gun violence that we've seen. The Bronx – the Bronx, Rodney, will talk about in a second. The Bronx, we have some work to do there, as well as some pockets throughout the city. But I think I think a lot of really positive work has been done and it's going to continue to be done. Rodney?

Chief of Patrol Rodney Harrison, NYPD: Good morning, Mr. Mayor. Commissioner, good morning, as well. Before I get started, I have to acknowledge a couple of people that did a great job over the weekend. Chief Judy Harrison, Chief Mike Kemper, Captain Joseph Antonio – really phenomenal strategy in regarding what we did over the Labor Day weekend to make sure it was safe. We had no incidents to report of any violence that are connected to the festivities. And it was a great team effort by all, so just wanted to make sure I acknowledge the men and women of Brooklyn North and South for the great work of making sure it was a safe weekend.

With that being said, yes, one shooting is too many, And, yes, we all fighting a high numbers. But since the beginning of the summer, the trend is going down. And that's the key word there – it’s the beginning of the summer. We took a look at the NYPD and said to ourselves, what can we do better? If you just take a look at the last 12 weeks, we've been down 206 shooting incidents versus last year – that's a decrease of 31 percent. And we're doing our job at NYPD, just take a look at our gun arrests. We have over 3,000 gun arrests for year-to-date. That's an increase of 750 versus last year. We have not seen numbers like that since 1996. And I’ve got to command and compliment the men and women of the New York City Police Department, who find any way possible with bravery to get these illegal firearms off the streets. And I also want to give kudos to our public safety officers. These are the officers that took over the anti-crime officers' spots, and they're in uniform, and they are accounted for 1,500 of the gun arrests year-to-date.

So, there's a couple of strategies that we have in place. Of course, we always talk about precision policing and we've seen some great work in Brooklyn, getting problematic individuals, our gang members of the streets, working with our federal or State prosecutors, cultivating whatever evidence we could come forward with regarding getting problematic individuals into custody. And some of the good work that we're doing in Brooklyn, we're going to make sure we bring that over to the Bronx as well, to identify some of these youth gangs that are really causing a lot of problems and violence within that area as well.

But the precision policing is a great policy, is a great strategy, and we're going to continue to capitalize off of what we've been doing through a gun violence, and Jason Savino, and the rest of the men and women under his leadership. Then, I’ve got to talk about predictive policing under Tom Galati, and we just take a look at what his field intelligence teams are doing and how they're able to predict the next shooting incident and making sure we put the appropriate resources in those commands to make sure we stop the next shooting incident. Retaliation has always been an issue for us, going back to 2020, maybe even 2019, and with the work of the field intelligence officers, identifying where the next shooting incident may be, has really paid off dividends, cultivating positive debriefings, getting cooperators to come forward to be able to see what we could do to stop the next shooting incident from occurring. Then, we talk about a holistic approach. We have this options program. The options program, it provides social intelligence through virtual reality scenarios. If I could just share some numbers with you. We got 300 youth summer jobs; 800 youth, we were able to put them on track for a learn-to-earn career; and 10,000 youth, we were able to get them to workshops. And we're going to continue that engagement with the youth through our police foundation to make sure we find additional centers and safe spaces for youth.

And last but not least, I’ve got to commend the violence interrupters. Credit goes out to them [inaudible] regarding playing such an important role in regarding engaging in some of these gang members, extracting them out of these games, making sure we give them the resources to leave that gang life behind them. I want to thank them for what they did over the weekend. I'm continuing to look forward to working with them, going down the road.

Mayor: Thank you so much, Chief. I’ve got to tell you, the Commissioner and the Chief actually are being kind of modest here about what's been achieved. So, I'm going to brag on you both for a moment. The report from this weekend, I want you to hear again with everything around, historically, J’Ouvert Parade, huge gatherings – of course, those were canceled, but still lots of people gathered informally – not a single incident. Let's be clear, not a single incident. How did that happen? Months of preparation and a huge amount of engagement with community organizations, elect officials, clergy. This is the NYPD exercising neighborhood policing profoundly. Also, as the Chief indicated, the work of the violence interrupters who are out in force over the last days, working with people, engaging people, averting anything that might lead to violence. This is what we've all dreamed of, honestly. We've got so much more work to do, but this kind of planning, this kind of engagement, leading to not a single incident is absolutely something that everyone should be proud of. I give a lot of credit to the Commissioner and the Chief for their work. But I also want to talk about two other things. One, the Youth Coordination Officers, that's been a passion of Commissioner Shea. Commissioner, you should know, on the weekend, Chirlane and I walked by a gym in Brooklyn, and we saw young people going in and there were a few officers outside and they came over and introduced themselves, and they were Youth Coordination Officers. And I could literally see in their eyes, in their faces how inspired they were to be doing this work. Uniformed NYPD officers who saw it as their mission to reach out to young people and help them on the right path, and literally intercept a young person who might be on the wrong path, help them get back to the right place, engage them in lots of positive ways, show them how much they mattered. I saw it in action, It was really moving.

Final thing I want to say about Brooklyn, and Chief Harrison has been working with his colleagues, he mentioned the great work they're doing. I want everyone to understand, Brooklyn, historically, particularly Brooklyn North – an area we've had a lot of challenges. But Brooklyn has been an amazing success story now. Shootings down 47.7 percent compared to August, 2020. I want you to hear this number again, 47.7 percent – almost 50 percent reduction in shootings compared to August 2020; over 130 gun arrests in Brooklyn in August alone. And the huge uptick in gun arrests to the great credit of the NYPD and the change in approach that the Commissioner and the Chief engineered has yielded historic numbers of gun arrest, the most we've seen in a quarter-century. It's working – a lot more to do, but it's working.

We have to recognize it's all about community. So, re-bonding NYPD and community, the amazing work of the Crisis Management System, the Cure Violence Movement. This is playing a bigger and bigger role. That's why we tripled the funding so those violence interrupters can be in more and more places doing the work they do. A lot more to do, but this is the right direction. I want you to hear from someone now, literally one of the leading experts on public safety in this city, he has been both a voice of conscience pushing all of us to do better, but also a voice for innovation and for deepening the bonds of police and community and with the Citizens Crime Commission constantly engaging the larger community of New York City in the work of making us safe. I want to thank him for the extraordinary work he and his colleagues do, the President of the Citizens Crime Commission for New York City, Richard M. Aborn. 

[...] 

Thank you so much, Richard. Thank you again. You're constantly watching, and we appreciate that. We need accountability too, and we appreciate what you and all your colleagues do to help us figure out what's the right path. And we've got a lot more to do, but I'm very encouraged by your analysis. It helps us affirm that these are the right steps, and we just need to do a lot more to continue to turn this tide. All right, now I'm going to – 

President Richard M. Aborn, Citizens Crime Commission: Thank you very much. 

Mayor: Thank you. Thank you so much, Richard. Now we're going to go to what we do every day, our indicators, because again, we're dealing with a lot of things simultaneously, but with our indicators, we start every day with something that has increasingly good news. And that's the number of vaccine doses administered to date. I love this number – 10,883,042 doses. And this is rising steadily. More and more people coming in. This is helping us immensely. You can see it in the other indicators. Number two, the daily number of people admitted to New York City hospitals for suspected COVID-19 – today's report, 109 patients. Confirmed positivity, 24.35 percent. Hospitalization rate of 1.23 per 100,000. And then number three, new reported cases on a seven-day average, today's report, 1,403 cases. I want to say a few words in Spanish and go back to the fight against crime and violence, and the work that's been done in these last months to turn the tide. 

[Mayor de Blasio speaks in Spanish] 

With that, let's turn to our colleagues in the media. Please let me know the name and outlet of each journalist. 

Moderator: Good morning. We will now begin our Q-and-A. As a reminder, we are joined by Police Commissioner Dermot Shea, Chief of Department Rodney Harrison, Health Commissioner Dr. Dave Chokshi, Dr. Mitch Katz President and CEO of New York City Health + Hospitals, Emergency Management Commissioner John Scrivani, SBS Commissioner Jonnel Doris, Environmental Protection Commissioner Vinny Sapienza, Sanitation Commissioner Ed Grayson, and Marcos Soler, Director of the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice. Our first question for today goes to Mark Morales from CNN.  

Question: Good morning, everybody. How you doing?  

Mayor: Good, Mark. How you been? 

Question: Good. Good. I had a couple of questions, but I wanted to start with the drop in the shootings. Is there anything specific procedurally that we can attribute that to? I know you mentioned the public safety unit, which does, I guess, what the anti-crime team used to do, but can we be a little bit more specific, a particular strategy or whether it was a certain takedown or maybe an acquisition of a load of guns? Like what exactly happened?  

Mayor: The Commissioner's raring to go on this one. Let me say first my layman point as I do with the doctors as well, and I'll pass to the expert, I really want to emphasize two things, a massive uptick in gun arrests and more cooperation from communities in terms of information. Those are really, really crucial to this equation, but now for a much more developed analysis –  

Commissioner Shea: You'd have to be on the inside, I think, to appreciate, you know, how seriously we take people taking guns out in New York City and when a shot is fired, what happens behind the scenes, and all the reports that are generated and the video that is collected and the intelligence shared not just in the police department, but with our partners as well. There's a – the answer is there's a lot of different things behind that drop, and it's crystal clear to me it, there is no doubt in my mind the single biggest factor is when we were able to introduce some of these backed up conspiracy cases that we had waiting to go. You have to go back to May, June and go back really to a year before when we weren't able to introduce those into the grand jury. These cases by our investigators are put together with excruciating detail, everything from social media to witnesses coming forward. And when I say witnesses coming forward, it's coaxing and building trust and getting them to cooperate and come forward into the grand jury. So, it's video, it's social media, it's expert testimony, it's ballistics. These grand juries take a long time, in this day and age, to put these types of cases. As soon as we were able to get the grand juries functioning and get those in and get some of the most violent people off the street, that's when you saw that 30 to 35 percent drop, that we’re still benefiting from. The challenge that we have now is taking it further. And as Richard Aborn, a man who I have incredible respect for, it's not about throwing a wide net out, it's about going after the individuals that still are resistant to – whether it's services or violence interrupters, or anything else, and surgically taking those individuals off the street. And I just got to say, I mean, the Mayor touched on it again, we have to interrupt that cycle of violence. You know, crime fighting right now, to me, it's kind of like riding a bull on a surfboard. You're being pulled in a million different directions all at once and lots going on. We got to shut out the noise and stay the course. And we know what works. It's working with the community. It's building trust. It's being the best damn investigators in the world. It's deploying people right. It's engaging. We have a lot of that going on in a very good way.  

What I think is missing – I'm being too kind, I know is missing, we need to be swifter in the criminal justice system, that when a case is built on those individuals, again, surgically with precision – that are out there causing chaos on the streets of New York City – we got to get them removed as quickly as possible. And that goes much beyond just their gang or just themselves. It gives everyone else a chance to flourish. It force-multiplies all the work that we're doing with kids in the community. Imagine being a kid sometimes on the toughest block in the city, and not only are you dealing with everything else that kids deal with, but you're dealing with a gang that is shooting on the block. So, we need to be able to be swifter in terms of the criminal justice system, stop that cycle of violence, and tell the people that are carrying a gun, there is no doubt when you carry a gun on New York City streets, the NYPD is going to catch you. It's going to move through the grand jury quick, and then you're going to have to make your decision with your defense attorney, so I take the plea or do I go to trial. Right now, the trial piece is missing. And that's kind of that – to me, it's the last piece that's missing. I'll give you one example of that. The NYPD trial system, when we hold our cops accountable, has been able to function this year. We've held more trials this year than we did last year. So, I think if the NYPD can hold trials and, granted there's not a jury, but there's a lot of people in that room. Think of all the events that we're holding in New York City. Think of the events that are outside, think of the events that are inside to get the vaccinations. Time to have fully functioning courts, period.  

Mayor: Amen. Do you want to add anything, Chief? 

Chief Harrison: Yeah, actually, I would. You know, there was one incident that happened across the country that caused such a major divide between the people that we are sworn to protect and the police officers – and not just New York City, throughout the country. And we're slowly and gradually more getting back into a place where people are taking a look at the NYPD and saying, hey, listen, we trust you, we want to work with you. I can't say it over and over again – myself and the Commissioner say it all the time. We go to so many different places throughout the city and people say, hey, listen, we need you, we want you in our neighborhoods. And I think that respect is coming back and that's helping us be a greater police department in regards to making this a safer city.  

Mayor: Amen. Go ahead, Mark. 

Question: I think the Commissioner touched on that, but I was hoping that you guys could expand on the part of the court system because last week, Mr. Mayor, you were talking about how the court system hasn’t been functioning and there was a correlation to that being a rise in crime. So, if the shootings are down now, but the court system still isn't functioning, how do they connect? How was there a drop in crime [inaudible] still not functioning? 

Mayor: Well, we all want this one. And I want to give Marcos Soler a moment as well. I’ll call on you in a minute, Marcos, get your facts ready. Now, Mark, I want to make sure you understand what I was saying. I was not saying – very, very clearly was not saying, oh, here's one villain and, you know, everything's disconnected. I was saying, everything's actually interconnected, but we've been missing a piece of the equation, which is the court system. As we've been trying to fight back crime, we haven't had the accountability and the consequences we needed. That did not stop the NYPD, that did not stop the violence interrupters from doing amazing work. It did not stop community members. But we couldn't do everything we needed to do without a functioning court system. And I keep coming back to this basic concept, Mark. If it's okay to not have a fully functioning court system, then why did we have one to begin with? 
Like, if it's fine to just leave it there, not fully brought back then what was its purpose to begin with? And the Commissioner’s right, you go to Broadway, you got full theaters, for God's sakes, where people are vaccinated and masks on. Why can't we have full courtrooms and every conceivable trial going, that could be going right now? So, it is about where we could be if we had fully functioning courts. It's not that we couldn't fight crime, it's that we could be a lot farther if we had them. Commissioner, I’ll give you an opportunity to speak, and then we'll turn to Marcos for some of those facts. Go ahead.  

Commissioner Shea: Yeah, I would just say, because again, there is a lot of different factors coming together here, when you look at those gang takedowns that we did – again and they’re not large sweeping. They're pretty concentrated in terms of who we go after. We gather the evidence, we work with the prosecutors, we wind up leaving some of them on the table, quite frankly, in terms of when decisions are made, who are we taking down and who are we charging? When those cases get made and the arrests are made, I can tell you from experience between bails being set and the charges that are facing, overwhelmingly those individuals are behind bars right now, awaiting their time, their trial. And they're probably going to stay that way, unless for some reason, something changes. That's why when you remove them from the streets, the shootings plummet. We know exactly what's behind most of the shootings and what neighborhoods and what blocks they're happening and where the retaliation is going to be, etcetera. 

But with the trial piece, what I'm getting at – because we keep saying, remember, as happy as we are that we've cut now three months in a row, and we expect to finish the year out every month like this, we want to get back to pre. We want to get back to setting records, where there’s days with no shootings in New York City. And put this in the category of surprise-to-no-one, the people that are doing shootings on the streets in New York City are the people that are carrying guns. And let's go back to, we are making gun arrests at a rate that we haven't seen in 25 years. And we know that whatever metric you look at, whether it's 5,000 or 4,000, it's over 5,000, but when you take the juveniles out, there are a lot, a lot of gun arrests that are waiting to be adjudicated in the criminal justice system. And when you have them getting arrested and being put right back on the street, as we know that 85 to 90 percent of them are, you are few – it's like throwing gasoline on these disputes on the streets. Where the gang members now say he was just arrested, he's back out, I got to carry my gun. And this is the reality of what New Yorkers see in some of these neighborhoods. And it's not fair. We need to speed up the process where those cases get adjudicated, where the trial is, if it's three months out, six months out, nine months out, 12 months out, how long is it out where we can with confidence say, take the plea today, or you're going to trial, and this is what you're going to face. That's not there right now. And as I've said, many times defense attorneys are playing a strategic game, which I would probably do the same thing if I was a defense attorney, which I'll never be. But if I was in their shoes, I would say, you are crazy to take a plea when there is no way – we know that you're not going to trial anytime in the near future, and that's because the courts aren't fully functioning. 

Mayor: I think that's a very fine breakdown of what's going on. Let's get some of the other facts from our Director of the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice Marcos Soler. 

Director Marcos Soler, Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice: Good morning, Mr. Mayor, thank you. There are two facts that are very – there are two facts that are crucial and critical. The first one is the number of pleas then we had had compared in 2019 to compare to this year, year today. We had almost 8,000 pleas in 2019, by now we only have 3,500 pleas. That is certainly a major impact in this system. That's above almost 4,500 people, fewer people who have plead guilty and therefore that have been sentenced and incapacitated to a certain degree the defendant in sentencing. Similarly, as the Mayor has a stressed, year to date, in 2019, we have 459 trial verdicts, this year we have only had 29 as of the month of July. That difference is what makes the system work, and right now we don't have that system working, and it's where the Commissioner was talking about the opportunity to the deter individuals who otherwise would be in the system. So, it's about creating that dynamic then incapacitated individuals and also the deter people from taking guns and creating the violence that we see these days. 

Commissioner Shea: Mr. Mayor, may I?  

Mayor: Yes, indeed.  

Commissioner Shea: Just one last point to build on what Marcos said. I would go one step further, and I'll be brief, when you look at the number of pleas, first this year versus 2019, then just go to the number of pleas that resulted in jail or prison time. That's the key number that we'll – look, cause remember, you carrying an illegally possessed firearm on the streets of New York City, mandatory three-and-a-half-year sentence, as per the law. And we know the police are going to factor in, and it's, it's complicated, I'll say it that way. But pleas don't tell the whole story, it's pleas that result in jail or prison time, and then my guess would be, you'll see that number even more dramatically going in the wrong direction.  

Mayor: Go ahead. 

Moderator: Our next question goes to Juliet Papa from 1010 WINS. 

Question: Yes, good morning, Mr. Mayor, and everybody on the call. I did want to ask, are there plans to release inmates early from Rikers Island and what is that plan? 

Mayor: There is no plan, and this is very unfortunate playing fast and loose with the truth. I don't know how it's acceptable if a media outlet asks us, is there such a plan? And we say no, that they go ahead and print it anyway for their own purposes, but that's what happened. No, there is no such plan. Go ahead, Juliet. 

Question: Okay. Thank you. Second question regarding the flooding, how often are storm drains and sewers cleaned up? Is there a schedule that either Sanitation or DEP needs to adhere to? Was that done or has there been neglect in some way in some of these locations where there was excessive flooding? 

Mayor: It's a very important question. Juliet, I'm going to turn to Commissioner Sapienza, and if you know Vinny Sapienza, he has literally devoted his whole life to serve the people in New York City, and I saw his work, and when the position of Commissioner for Department of Environmental Protection came up, I chose him because he knew the city, he knew the department, he knew the people that do the work there, but he's going to tell you the blunt truth both about - and Commissioner, of course, there's areas that we need to do better, let's acknowledge that. But also, the truth of the standard to which our sewer system is built and the challenges that are being created by extreme weather, such as we've never literally imagined previously, I think it's really important to be blunt with the people of this city about what we're facing. Go ahead, Commissioner. 

Commissioner Vincent Sapienza, Department of Environmental Protection: Yeah, thank you, Mayor, and Juliet, first to your question about the catch basins. You know, you could look at the Mayor's Management Report over the last four years, we've done more catch basin cleaning than at any time in city history. The catch basins are really in good shape, better than I think they've ever been, and you know, I've been doing this job for 38 years. But as the Mayor said, you know, just like other cities across the Northeast, our sewer system was designed for a different reality, and Ida’s peak rainfall rate was double what the city system is designed to handle, and that was really the issue, those extra millions of gallons of runoff that couldn't make it into the sewer system, just ran downhill and into these topological, low-lying neighborhoods with tragic results. That was really the issue.  

Mayor: Yeah, and that, and that means, and everyone should be talking now about two things, climate change and infrastructure, and thank God President Biden and Leader Chuck Schumer, Speaker Pelosi are all focused on those two things. But to be clear, we've got to go at the root cause of climate change, Juliet. That is the single best chance we have of averting these kinds of horrible disasters in the future is to fundamentally change our use of fossil fuels, reduce it radically, go to renewable energy. That is the only true solution. And at the same time to do the work that will take years, and in fact, decades of reworking our entire infrastructure. What Vinny just told you is the entire sewer system of New York City, which is vast, was not built for this kind of extreme weather, which means we would have to rebuild the entire thing, obviously with a particular focus on the area's most vulnerable, that's a Herculean task. We will start on that task immediately, especially with the new federal support we're getting, but the truth is we've got to go at the root cause if we expect to get through this a lot more tragedies. 

Moderator: Our next question goes to Jessica from WNYC.  

Question: Hey, I was hoping to get the status of DOB’s investigation into the homes where people died last week, specifically whether homeowners who rented basements illegally will face any fines or punishment? 

Mayor: We don't have the Buildings Commissioner on. Let's see if we can get her on or have her follow up with you. But Jessica, look, our first concern, of course, was to address the needs of those tenants and to not leave people with any impression that they might lose their housing. So, we are going to hold people accountable, but not in a way that punishes the tenants. Another Herculean task for the city is going to be figuring out how to address the illegal basement apartments. I said to everyone the other day, our Deputy Mayor, Vicki Been’s initial estimate from the research that she and her team had done, is at minimum, 50,000 apartments and a 100,000 people living in them. There is no way to provide people with that kind of housing anytime soon. We've got to figure out a way to address these apartments, these basement apartments over time. It's going to take a huge amount of resources, big changes, another really, really big infrastructure project, while simultaneously providing people with a whole different understanding of extreme weather and how to address it, and as I said, including mandatory evacuations from basement apartments when we see certain events coming. But right now, the focus is not on punishing but making sure people can get back in their homes. Go ahead, Jessica. 

Question: Okay. Thank you. And this is a school's question, I know that the Chancellor isn't there either today, but I was wondering, my understanding from the state guidance that came out is that the state is calling for weekly COVID testing in schools in high transmission areas. That's different than the city's plan right now. I was wondering if there's a conflict between the two, if there's a change coming to the city's testing plan based on the state guidance? 

Mayor: I'll start, and Dr. Chokshi can speak to this as well. He's obviously been deeply involved in all the discussions around our schools. And I want to emphasize to frame it, Jessica, that across the State of New York, you have very different realities in schools. We, starting last year, literally set the gold standard for the entire nation in terms of the extent of health and safety measures that have been taken. Never was a question to us about having masks on our kids and adults, we did that all last year, we did that in Summer Rising, we're doing it this year. I'm happy the Governor did a mask mandate, but that's something obviously we did long ago, and we're absolutely committed to. The vaccination levels in the city are profoundly different than some other places, right now, 5.5 million New Yorkers with at least one dose, and unlike, again, many other places, mandatory vaccination for all the adults will be working in the schools. We feel very, very good about where we are. In terms of testing, the approach we're now taking, which is biweekly, but with the option at any point to bring more testing into any school that needs it very rapidly. We feel good about that approach. We're going to be able to make adjustments if we feel the need to, but we think when you combine it with all these other factors, we're in a very, very strong place. As to the latest state guidance and how we're juxtaposing with it, Dr. Chokshi, you want to speak to that? 

Commissioner Dave Chokshi, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene: Yes, sir. Thank you. Not much to add, and I would just reinforce that in many ways the health and safety protocols that the Department of Education is putting into place already go beyond the state guidance, perhaps most importantly with respect to vaccination and ensuring that all school staff are vaccinated, which is stronger than what's elaborated in the state guidance. With respect to testing, as the Mayor has said, we have the biweekly testing approach to start. We should consider that as a floor rather than a ceiling given that we will have other ways to bring to bear testing in the setting of seeing increases in infection or for specific circumstances at the school level. So, we are reviewing the latest versions of the state guidance carefully just to ensure that everything is aligned between our approach and what the state has elaborated, and we will keep you posted if there are any differences based on that.  

Mayor: Thank you very much. Go ahead. 

Moderator: Our next question goes to Michael Gartland from the Daily News. 

Question: Good morning, Mr. Mayor. Good morning to everybody on the call.  

Mayor: How are you doing Michael? 

Question: I'm good. Mr. Mayor on the storm, you know, you said – and you know, you probably fielded that a couple of questions about this, but I feel like it's worth getting into again, I mean, you've described the results is unimaginable and, you know, there were weather forecasts predicting record rainfalls. We know that, you know, with storms because of climate change, you have storms that move more slowly and drop more concentrated rainfall. And we know that, you know, there are flooding problems in some of these Queens neighborhoods. So, you know, how can you that it's unimaginable? What I mean to what do you attribute this kind of lack of imagination on the part of the city government? 

Mayor: Well, Michael, look, we're going to have to do things very differently. That's the bottom line because we had a history of how we handle different weather events then we saw a few weeks ago, a record set for a single hour that did not set off the kind of impacts we saw in these last days. And that was with a Hurricane - when Henri that came right at us. Here we had – and I would just contest part of the way you framed it - we had Ida coming up from Louisiana crossing across the interior of the United States. I spoke to Administrator Deanne Criswell about that, no one's seen a scenario like this, where a hurricane goes a thousand miles plus across inland and still has the kind of impact to set the all-time rainfall record. No, that was not projected. And the impact that could happen in such a brief period of time, we haven't experienced that. What I think we have to learn from this because it was not, I mean, you saw it up and down the eastern seaboard, all localities thought they were dealing with something different, or we would have been providing an entirely different approach. We've done it in snowstorms for example, we would have done it here. The bottom line is we now know we cannot get sufficient projections. They don't exist. And we're going to have to over warn people and provide a very different approach. We have a task force we're putting together. That's literally going to assess everything the city does in terms of extreme weather and reset the entire equation. We're going to be talking to people in serious potential events, any serious potential event, about travel bans, about mandatory evacuations. It's going to be an entirely different language and entirely different set of assumptions. So, I've looked carefully at what the projections were on Wednesday morning, they were not for the all-time greatest rainfall in our history and the kind of impact we would have had. If we had had those kinds of projections, we would have done things very, very differently, obviously. Go ahead, Michael. 

Question: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to ask you and Dr. Chokshi about, and excuse me if I'm pronouncing it wrong, I think it's the Mu variant. You know, this is, what I've read about it, quite alarming. And I was wondering if he could talk about what we know about it on city level, what's being done to prepare for it, what's already been done to prepare for it. What can you tell us about that? 

Mayor: Dr. Chokshi, then Dr. Katz – give us a sense of what you're seeing. 

Commissioner Chokshi: Certainly, thanks for the question, Michael. We have been following the Mu variant. I'll just give you the brief summary of it. Mu is also known as B-1621. It was first identified in the country of Colombia in January of this year but has attracted some interest recently because the World Health Organization added it to its list of “variants of interest” about a week ago, last Monday. There are, you know, some concerns about this being more resistant to the immune system, both in terms of vaccines as well as natural immunity, than other variants. And so that is why the WHO added it to its “variants of interest” list. 

With respect to what we're seeing in New York City. The news is more positive. And briefly what we've seen is that the percentage of Mu that is identified in the specimens that we're sequencing has steadily decreased. It was in about 20 percent of our specimens in early June, in July that decreased to seven percent of specimens, and most recently it's making up less than one percent of the cases in New York City because that the Delta variant is the variant that's making up almost all of the cases in New York City. So just to put it altogether: we're aware of this variant, we have been tracking it in New York City. The prevalence has actually decreased significantly. And so, our public health guidance remains the same, particularly emphasizing the importance of vaccination against the Delta variant and for all of the other variants as well. Thank you, sir.  

Mayor: Thank you. Dr. Katz, anything to add? 

President Katz: Dr. Chokshi did a great job. I'll just point out to people that what drives variants is transmissibility, not how harmful they are. Viruses are not actually trying to harm us. They're just trying to replicate. And part of why Delta is so dominant is not because of its harmfulness, but because of its wild contagiousness, it's just so contagious. And I think the same is not showing to be true about Mu. It's not turning into the dominant virus because it's not as transmissible. Thank you, sir.  

Mayor: Thank you. Go ahead. 

Moderator: Our next question goes to Arthur Chi’en from FOX 5. 

Question: Hi, good morning, Mayor. First of all, thank you for the information on Friday for private preschools – the schools we dealt with said it was very helpful to get that information. 

Mayor: Thank you, and thank you for raising that point. It was very helpful as well to hear it from you, Arthur. 

Question: Alright, thank you, sir. Speaking about what you're talking about today – for a long time in the spring, you, and Commissioner Shea next to you, and others kept on saying that it was a closure of the courts that was at the root of the spike in violence. With the way the grand jury is working, as you guys have just described it now, would you say it is proof that your claim was accurate earlier this year? 

Mayor: Well, Arthur, again, I respect your work, but I want to say the phrasing – it just wasn't the phrasing I used. We weren't saying the violence was caused by the courts, obviously. We were saying the violence we saw all over the country because of the dislocation that happened in society as a whole – jobs were gone, schools were gone, house of worship were shut down. We're talking about 2020, where all of this exploded, and we knew our job in 2021 would be that constantly constrict and bring things back to something normal. And we also knew that recovery was a crucial factor. The more there was positive things for people to do, the more that life got back to normal, the more people would resume the more positive elements of their life.  
So, that's what the overall picture was, but to get all that done, we also needed a functioning court system. What I've been saying now for months is the absence of a fully functioning court system was hindering our ability to get accountability, and to get consequences. It was particularly true when we weren't even having trials on the most serious crimes, the most horrible gun violence incidents, but it's still true if we're having trials on the worst crimes, but not on a whole host of other crimes. We need the whole thing to function. Everything in the criminal justice system is interrelated. So, I do believe, to finish out your question, I believe we are seeing evidence that the NYPD has fought back in an extraordinary fashion from the worst of last year.  Community members, community organizations are doing great work. As the courts have started, it's really helpful. But for us to get to that transcendent point where the Commissioner said, we want to start comparing against 2019, not against 2020. We need a fully functioning court system. Go ahead, Arthur.

Question: Okay. My last question, sir, is who – what's the obstacle to getting it working? Who's responsible and what are the hurdles right now to get it the way that you need it to work?

Mayor: I’ll start and then the Commissioner and the Chief and Director Soler can join in who are working so closely with the court system. Look, I do want to say, I understand for the court system, they were dealing with tremendous challenges. The Office of Court Administration, it's a State agency. The challenges with the court officers, the challenges with the defense attorneys, a lot of different constituencies, trying to keep the courts from coming back. I don't belittle that challenge. And I feel sympathy for the Chief Judge and everyone in the court system, trying to balance all those factors and obviously a great concern about health and safety. But it hearkens back to what Commissioner Shea said months ago, you know, when Yankee Stadium was filled of customers and yet our courts were not functioning. And so many other things. We obviously had school all last year. We had Summer Rising this year. Plenty of other parts of our society figured out how to keep people safe, how to put the protocols in place. And the City of New York constantly said to the Office of Court Administration, if you need buildings, we'll give you buildings. If you need vaccination teams, we will give you vaccination teams. You need ventilation, we'll give you ventilation. Whatever you need, but you've got to call everyone back and put the court system fully in order and fully operational. And that's what we still haven't seen. Commissioner, you want to add? And then to Marcos or Chief?

Commissioner Shea: Yeah, I'll just say, and Marco would be probably great to hear from on this. From my view, I don't want to for a second, underestimate, you know, the challenges and real challenges that everyone faced over the last year. And I don't think we'll recount them all now, but we know what we all went through. And it was unprecedented times, not knowing what we were dealing with COVID. So that's fully, fully acknowledge that. But I would just say that, you know, we put ourselves in situations, whether it's events, food shopping, there's many examples, waiting on line in Home Depot that you could point to and just say, when you look at the court system, I don't view it as a luxury. I viewed it from day one as a necessity and public safety is right there. We would never shut down a hospital. We took drastic steps. We had to shut down schools to some point, and maybe I'll misspeak with some of the – you get the point. The court system to me, is directly related to public safety. And we need to continue to do everything possible to have that up functioning at a high level. Technology, safety precautions, masks, separating people, doing things we never did before I think is probably something that we probably need to look at with this. How do you hold grand juries? How do you hold trials? But at the end of the day, we have to figure it out because we cannot have the public be subject to violent people walking around on the streets. That's what I'll say on the issue.

Mayor: And I want to pick up on the schools analogy, Arthur. Yeah, there were a few times where we actually had to shut them down. But the overwhelming story of 2020 is whatever the hell it took, we got our schools open. Again, we had to create a standard that no one else had figured out of layering all the health and safety measures to get schools open. We did not consider schools optional. We knew how crucial it was. We found a way. That's all we're asking of the State. Just find a way. We're offering any and all help you need. But I think there has been a reticence to go that extra mile and do what you know exactly what the Commissioner said. Hospitals didn't have the luxury of shutting down. They were not considered optional. The police, firefighters, everyone stayed at their post. We needed the court system to keep going after that initial shock, whenever we could bring it back, we needed it to be brought back to maximum. Right now with all the tools we have, it undoubtedly should be at maximum, but it's not. That's what we have to solve for. Marcos Soler, you want to add?

Director Soler: I will add very briefly, Mr. Mayor, there are two things. One is, as the Mayor indicated, there are good signs that we see in the number of indictments for violent felonies on guns, a lot of other indicators that are positive. But the main problem that we have is now is a lot of court events, a lot of court processes that take outside the courtroom are not happening and will help daily to indicate that the system is moving. Appearances are down 35 percent, pre-trial hearings down 45 percent compared to 2019. Those are the things that we can do immediately. That will send a strong signal again to the deter and to incapacitate certain individuals, which is our goal here. And certainly, the overall numbers will improve. [Inaudible] as the Mayor indicated, then the courts [inaudible] the violence. they can certainly contribute a lot to incapacitate and deter in this process.

Mayor: Thank you. Let me turn to Chief Harrison as well.

Chief Harrison: You know, there's a rippling effect that occurs when somebody is held accountable for carrying an illegal firearm. I think there is a need and major importance in regards to public safety and making sure we are getting the right individuals off the street if they choose to go that direction. You know, it's funny, the media quite often blames the NYPD, quite often. We're willing to take on that challenge and take a look at ourselves as well as be transparent. We need somebody to challenge the judicial system through this process and make sure they get back up and running and making sure they take a priority in public safety as well. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor: Thank you, Chief. Go ahead.

Moderator: Our next question goes to Katie from The City.

Question: Hey, how are you Mayor de Blasio?

Mayor: Good, Katie. How you been?

Question: Hello?

Mayor: Can you hear me, Katie?

Question: Good, good. I wanted to – yeah. Can you hear me?

Mayor: Yeah.

Question: You guys – perfect. I wanted to ask if the City knows at this point, if there's a number or a figure of how many homes and businesses were damaged in last week's storm?

Mayor: I'll turn to our Emergency Management Commissioner and our Small Business Services Commissioner. I will start by saying Katie, we know there's a lot that's been reported. Our Buildings Department for example, is following up on every report of damage. Thank God, most of those have not been a major damage, in terms of structural damage that would make a building uninhabitable. But Commissioner Scrivani will go over that. And we know we still need to reach a lot of people to see what their needs are. But what we haven't had is a lot of folks who have been seeking shelter or saying that their home was uninhabitable. Thank God again, because we want to make sure that everyone is safe. But we haven't had too many people requesting shelter. But in terms of the efforts to get a numerical count on how many homes were damaged, how much help is needed, home and business, first Commissioner Scrivani then Commissioner Doris.

Commissioner John Scrivani, Emergency Management: Yeah. Thank you, sir. To date, we've had over 3,000 reports to 3-1-1 for damaged homes. We think that count is very low. Those are independent reports. And I believe that with the effort you outlined earlier about us going door to door, we'll be able to identify a lot more folks who have that need. We've also had over 1,000 people come into our service centers, reporting that they had some needs and some of their property was damaged. So, we do think that is also a low count and that the, you know, the ground game that you are putting forward will help identify those numbers. And they should increase dramatically in my opinion.

Mayor: And Commissioner Doris as to businesses, can you give us a overall?

Commissioner Jonnel Doris, Small Business Services: Yeah, generally speaking, sir, we've had several hundred businesses, over 200 businesses reach out for direct help and support. But again, we are going door to door in those areas that are heavily impacted to those storefronts, speaking with those businesses and certainly going to have a more accurate count as we do that as we go forward. And also as folks call into our hotline, don't ever want to go without saying, 8-8-8-SBS- 4-NYC. Please call us if you have a need, we certainly will assess your need and reach you in the field, speak to you directly and get our emergency unit to you as soon as possible. Thank you.

Mayor: Thank you. And I know we unfortunately lost Katie's phone line there, so let's go on to whoever's next.

Moderator: Next we have Ashley from the New York Times.

Question: Good morning, Mr. Mayor. And to the others on the call. I wanted to ask, you know, you talked about crime this morning, but the statistics for the full month of August have not yet been made available. And I wanted to see if we have any – you talked a lot about gun arrests, and I'm wondering if we have any data on shooting arrests?

Mayor: So, let's turn to the Commissioner and the Chief. I'm, myself – I haven't heard previously that the full August statistics are out. So, let's speak to that and then answer the specific question.

Commissioner Shea: Yep. How are you, Ashley? Good seeing you last week, by the way. Regarding the crime statistics. I mean we take great lengths to be as transparent as possible. NYPD 2.0 has for everyone literally, I think we sped it up where when we used to put that information out, there was a one week lag. I believe that lag is gone. So, you know what I know at this point in time. If we didn't do a press release, I'd have to check on that. But the crime statistics for the month of August, is the overall number is 8-8-9-2. That's 8,892 crimes, down from 9,330. And then we'll release each individual, you know, rape was slightly up, grand larceny was slightly up, and the other indicators were all down. Regarding the last point, I think I'm forgetting one of your questions, but regarding shooting arrests, I don't have those numbers in front of me. I don't know if Rodney does? He does, so I'll let him do it.

Mayor: Go ahead, Rodney.

Chief Harrison: Yeah. Good morning, Ashley. So, we have close to 900 arrests for shooting incidents. That's not just this year. That's from 2020, 2019, 2018, and going down. So, the one thing I have to make sure I share this information is we continue to hunt our investigations. It could happen tomorrow. It could happen five years from now. Perfect example is the Aamir Griffin shooting incident that happened a couple of years ago. And we were just able to make an arrest in that incident. So, New York City Police Department, we've got the greatest detectives in the world and we continue to hunt on a lot of our investigations with the shooting incidents has happened in previous years before.

Commissioner Shea: Ashley, if I could just say, you know, if you're referring to shooting clearances, I think the most recent numbers are about 33 percent. You know, the historical number on non-fatal shootings is about 42 percent. That number will grow as the year goes on. So, it's lower than I would like, but it's probably in line with historically. And I'll tell you what we're seeing of late. And it's not that different from what we see historically, we're seeing, you know, you have to kind of think of what we're dealing with is we respond to a shooting. It's often times, as we've said, gang members that don't want to cooperate. So, not only are they not telling us who shot them, they're not telling us where the shooting happened, as they drive themselves to the hospital. There's a lot of work that goes into all of this. We talk about trust all the time and building trust and getting people to cooperate in the criminal justice system. I would kind of separate what I just outlined to you is a little different one. You know, I would love to get to a point where gang members are willfully telling us what happened. But I don't think that's anytime soon Mr. Mayor, unfortunately. But we're going to continue to, with the greatest detectives and police officers work these cases, as you saw from the arrest of the tragic death, Aamir Griffin last week, when we brought somebody back from an arrest, from an incident that happened years ago. We are working these cases and it's a combination of whether it's gang takedowns, individual cases, finding out who's responsible for pulling the trigger in New York City and making sure they face justice.

Mayor: And, Ashley, before your next question, just to update. I had thought everything was out ahead of this press conference. I'm surprised it wasn't. But apparently, it's being posted now. So, you'll have that information right away. Go ahead, Ashley.

Question: Thank you. And it was nice seeing you last week as well, Commissioner. Hope you enjoyed the M&Ms. My second question is again, on the topic of gun arrests. Because you all have talked about how the courts are not up to speed. And I'm wondering if there's any concern that these gun arrests are overwhelming the court system and also hindering its ability to deal with violence? It's also – each of these cases also takes detective work that you might otherwise use for shooting investigations to bring those clearances up. So, you know, using the Mayor's hospital analogy you know, we don't close hospitals. We don't – we also don't send all patients to the hospital. Is there – why isn't there a sort of an urgent care in the city for gun arrests or for gun possession?

Commissioner Shea: I got it, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor: Yeah, I'm going to turn to the Commissioner, but just want to add my two cents on the way to him. Ashley, appreciate the question a lot. I only want to say with the analogy and again, the hospitals are an analogy. The schools are an analogy. That, I don't want to be as simple as saying where there's a will, there's a way. But I think that is largely the point here. We did not give ourselves the opportunity to keep our schools closed. We didn't give ourselves the opportunity to do a lot of other things. We could have said, we're not going to do – no, we had to do them. We made a decision, we had to do them. We made a decision, we had to have a recovery. We had to bring our City workers back to their offices so they could serve people the most. Once you decide you're going to do something it makes a huge difference. What I'm still looking for from the court system is a willingness to go to absolute maximum, despite the different constituencies, the different valid needs and concerns, kind of a damn the torpedoes approach here to say we've got to get there one way or another to the maximum extent possible. Because I certainly don't want to see NYPD reduce its historic rate of gun arrests. I think it has been tremendously productive. I want the court system to catch up with the NYPD. Go ahead, Commissioner.

Commissioner Shea: Yeah. Ashley, I'll bring you back. So, if you go back to maybe 2010, ‘11, roughly, NYPD was making about 425,000 arrests a year. 422,000, I think was the peak. We are at 103,000 right now in New York City. And that's through the first week of September. So, when you look at how many arrests we generate, you know, and you know as well as I do what was behind that. And you know, when I took over CompStat and the precision policing and really working with prosecutors and working with advocates and working with a lot of people, there were so few arrests made in New York City now, compared to historically. I don't think we're overwhelming the system at all whatsoever, with the gun arrests that we're making. That's the first point. In terms of how we then got down to driving New York City crime to all time lows and shooting to all-time lows, just in really 2018, ‘19 was paying attention to the little things. Don't wait for a shooting. Don't wait for a homicide, pay attention to the shots fired, pay attention. I mean, Rodney runs CompStat with Mike Lipetri now, this is what they do. Pay attention to the person that's carrying a gun. If we ever get that right, working with all the partners, we will see an explosion downward in crime, a spiral down, and building trust and working with kids and keeping them out of trouble and safer streets. And it's attainable. And we will no doubt get there. And I know the NYPD will lead the way. But paying less attention to the gun arrests would probably be the last thing I would do at this point in time.

Mayor: And I'll just finish on that Ashley, with the point that three police commissioners in a row, Commissioner Bratton, Commissioner O'Neill, Commissioner Shea all believe that we could make the city historically safe with many fewer arrests. And so, I really want to emphasize, except for a global pandemic, we saw tremendous consistency in that pattern. Fewer arrests, but the right arrest, the ones that really mattered. And needing a court system to respond quickly to them. But the Commissioner's point really needs to ring in our ears. We've brought a lot less to the court system to deal with, but what we needed from them was to deal with the ones that were brought forward, particularly the gun arrests. That's what we're asking for now, get to your maximum the way everyone else is and help us turn the corner entirely. And we have Katie back? Okay, go ahead. Katie, you there?

Question: Hey, can you hear me?

Mayor: Yep.

Question: Yeah. Can you guys hear me? Thank you. I wanted to ask a question, I guess you spoke about it briefly, but about the punishment for homeowners who had illegal basement apartments? Do you have any details on what that will be? Additionally, I've heard from some people who say, look, and this now dovetails into an issue that I guess hasn't really been addressed during your administration. They live in parts of the city where they pay some of the highest property taxes, especially looking in Southeast Queens. And some homeowners say, this is the only way we can afford to live in this home if we have tenants in various parts of the home. So, do you have kind of, getting details into what the punishments would be for those homeowners who had illegal [inaudible] just like for the people living in those basement apartments, perhaps the owners also had no other choice, but to rent these out?

Mayor: Well, I think that's the point. It's a very important question, Katie. I think that's the point, we talked about this last week. I could tell you that we've got some miraculous plan to solve the illegal basement problem overnight. We don't. I want to be blunt about that. It is a massive structural problem in the city. It has been for decades. We don't have an immediate solution to this one. We've got to protect people's lives and the way we protect people's lives in terms of this violent and extreme weather is with the tools I've talked about in last few days. We're going to have a different kind of warning system. We're going to have forced evacuations, if it needs to be, travel bans, all sorts of things we just rarely used in the past. We're going to use it in the future. But that doesn't solve the underlying problem of these illegal basement apartments. There's not an immediate solution. And certainly, just punishing, punishing, punishing is not the way to solve this problem. Over time with a massive investment – clearly this would be tens of billions of dollars ultimately – we could attempt to convert as many of them to legal, but that's going to take a huge amount of work. And as you said, for a lot of homeowners, it's the only way they can stay in their home to rent those out, and a lot of people need the housing. So, we're in a catch-22, there's no question about it. I think the answer is to protect people with what we have now with new approaches, and then over time as we get more and more resources in, particularly from the federal government, do the painstaking work of converting as many of them as possible, but it's going to take a huge amount of public money to do that. Homeowners themselves, just aren't going to have the resources to do that realistically. 

Moderator: Our last question for today goes to Julia from the Post.  

Question: Hey, good morning, Mr. Mayor, can you hear me? 

Mayor: Yeah, Julia. How are you doing? 

Question: I'm pretty good. I just wanted to note that I spoke with two members of your administration over the last week or so about the City's continued use of what's called the 6-A program, which is early release from City jails, you know, early release from their sentences. In writing, one of your officials told me that a list from City Hall was sent over to PD for review for potential 6-A candidates. So, given those communications can you explain to me why you said there's no plan to have an early release from Rikers? 

Mayor: Yeah, exactly what I said. With all due respect, you're told by officials of City Hall – I don't know who you talk to, and if you want to share the names we'll follow up with those people. But when you're told directly by people at City Hall, it's not happening, that's the final word. I don't know who was looking at plans. They were not presented here. They were not approved. It just isn't true. So, it's one thing if people lower down want to claim something. If you bring it back here and ask us, true or not, and we say it's not true, it's not true. And I don't think it's smart to report something when we're telling you it's not true. There's a – it’s a huge government. There are people constantly looking at different alternatives and assessing them, but if they haven't been approved, they literally haven't been approved and it isn't happening. Go ahead. 

Question: Okay. Thanks. And before my next question, just to be clear, I asked six different members of your administration [inaudible] –  

Mayor: Respectfully, Julia, I don't care how many you’ve asked, if you – 

Question: [Inaudible] returned until after the story was published six hours after our deadline [inaudible] –  

Mayor: Again, Julia, if you simply ask my press secretary if something's true or not, you'll get a clean answer from where the decisions are made. It is a massive government. You can speak to a hundred people for all I care. If you ask us, is this happening or not, and we say it's not happening. It's not happening. I think it would be more accurate and helpful to the public, rather than presenting something that's not true, to report if we say it's not true – that we said, it's not true. That should be the only thing. And if your outlet is interested in finding the truth, come to the people who make the decisions, go ahead. 

Question: Okay. We could litigate that offline. For the Police Commissioner, does he have how many of the gun arrests are actually connected to shootings? 

Mayor: Commissioner or Chief? How many gun arrests connected to shootings – 

Commissioner Shea: I don’t think you’re going to find anyone that has that because you're looking at so many variables, so you'd be looking at how many shootings have ballistics recovered, bullets, shell casings. So, the short answer is no, I don't have that, nor do I think that number reliably exists. 

Mayor: All right, Chief, anything to add or are you good? 

Chief Harrison: No.  

Mayor: Okay. As we conclude, just again, appreciation to the leaders of the NYPD who are here with us and to the men and women of the NYPD and to so many community partners, because we see some real progress here. We've got a long, long way to go, particularly in the Bronx, a lot of really important work to do over the coming weeks and months. But what matters here is that the right tools are in place and the right approaches. That's what we're seeing consistently here. This is one of the foundations of our recovery, and we're just going to continue. These next few weeks are going to be crucial. September is going to be the time when you're going to start to see more and more come back in this city. And today's news is a big part of it. Thank you, everybody.  

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