During a press briefing on Thursday, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) was asked about felony assault statistics in the subway.
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00:00Governor, if we could direct you to the Loge section back there.
00:03That's Newton Jones, Burkett III from Channel 7 Eyewitness News.
00:06Tim, thank you.
00:07To Chief Kemper and to the governor, if you would weigh in on this also.
00:11As I recall, felony assaults have remained stubbornly high.
00:15I'm wondering where you are with respect to felony assaults.
00:19And as I recall, the victims of felony assaults have been police officers and transit workers, largely.
00:26So where are we on those numbers, and how are you addressing that category in particular?
00:31I'd just say that you're absolutely right, Newt, that the growth in felony assaults, which we've brought down, we've actually pushed that back.
00:43It was growing at a much faster rate.
00:45A lot of it is attributable.
00:46We've just got to be honest.
00:48We're doing more enforcement.
00:49The NYPD is doing more enforcement, and there are more interactions that result in somebody who got stopped for fare evasion, for example, whacking a cop, or even worse.
01:01That is a big driver of what we're doing.
01:04And we want to protect our transit workers, and the assaults on transit workers are down 30%.
01:10So we are pushing back hard against those two stubbornly high numbers, and I think we're making progress.
01:16But with the governor's discovery changes, this is a category of crime that is especially relevant in that discovery change.
01:24Because if somebody attacks a police officer, it's supposed to be a felony.
01:28But frequently it's being knocked down or even let go because of this problem of the technicalities that governor's discovery initiative addresses.
01:38So we believe that the people who commit those types of crimes are going to see more consequences as a result of the law.
01:45That's what we're shooting for.