00:00Thank you, sir. I could have used your hat and your sunglasses.
00:04Good morning, everyone. Before we begin, I want to provide an update on two recent cases.
00:12First, the shooting incident involving the off-duty Customs and Border Protection officer on Saturday.
00:19Our federal partners on the HSI Violent Gangs Task Force have now apprehended the second suspect, the alleged scooter driver.
00:29His name is Christian Eibar Baroa. Once Mr. Baroa was in custody, NYPD homicide detectives conducted a debrief of him.
00:40During that interrogation, Baroa implicated both himself and the person we had identified as a person of interest in the shooting, Miguel Mora.
00:51We expect both Baroa and Mora to be charged federally today by the Southern District.
00:58A bit more about Mr. Baroa. He was arrested eight times between March and April 2024 for grand larcenies and robberies involving a scooter in the Bronx.
01:11He's also a suspect in at least four additional cases. He entered this country illegally through Texas in 2022.
01:21The second update is on the arson at the 8-3 precinct lot that occurred on June 12th.
01:27I'm pleased to report that Jackie Ladshin McCray, the individual responsible for setting fire to 11 department vehicles and causing at least $800,000 in damage to NYPD property, was taken into custody this morning.
01:44The NYPD identified Mr. McCray in mid-June through forensics and video evidence and today he agreed to surrender through his attorney.
01:54He turned himself in without incident at a food bazaar in Brooklyn accompanied by his lawyer and his mother.
02:01He is expected to be charged federally on arson charges by the Eastern District this morning.
02:08Now I'm going to turn to another serious issue putting lives at risk in subway surfing.
02:14We've learned a lot about this issue over the past few years and here's what we know.
02:20Subway surfing is not a trend, it's not a rite of passage and it's certainly not viral entertainment.
02:27It's a deadly risk taken mostly by kids, often in groups, fueled by social media, amplified by peer pressure and sustained by a false and naive sense of invincibility.
02:40It is Russian roulette on rails and too many kids are playing it without understanding the stakes.
02:47But we know the consequences and we are leveraging modern technology to act before it's too late.
02:54Last week, as the mayor said, we hit a milestone.
02:56The 200th subway surfing rescue made using drones since we launched our transit drone program in late 2023.
03:05That's young lives pulled from the edge of death.
03:08That's preventing a tragedy instead of responding to it.
03:13And that success is possible because our drone teams are out there five days a week strategically deployed to hot spots like along the Seven Line in Queens,
03:23which accounts for almost 50% of all subway surfing incidents.
03:28This is not guesswork.
03:30These are focused deployments based on pattern analysis through 911 call data and incident response.
03:36When our pattern emerges, we send our drone teams out.
03:39They deploy around sections of elevated track, launch drones and monitor the tops of moving trains.
03:46If they spot subway surfers, they radio directly to nearby transit officers who quickly respond and get the kids down safely.
03:55It's fast.
03:56It's coordinated.
03:57And it is highly successful.
03:59In fact, out of the 343 drone deployments over the past two years, nearly 60% identified subway surfers.
04:09And while these rescues often end in arrests, we call them saves because that's what we're doing here.
04:16We're saving lives.
04:18And in the vast majority of cases, we're talking about children's lives.
04:22Since we've started tracking these incidents in 2022, our list of 63 repeat offenders has an average age of 14.
04:33Some of them have been caught doing this three, four, five times, and one of them a total of 13 times.
04:41This isn't a game.
04:43It's a public health and safety crisis.
04:46And the cost of inaction is steep.
04:49Since 2022, 16 people have died subway surfing, the youngest being 11.
04:56And 20 people have been severely injured.
04:59Some lost limbs.
05:00Others suffered traumatic brain injuries.
05:03Many won't ever fully recover.
05:05We are not going to wait for the next fatality.
05:08We're not going to let this become the new normal.
05:11Our job is to take every step necessary to change this reckless and deadly behavior.
05:16But enforcement alone won't do that.
05:19That's why we are in homes talking directly to the families of repeat offenders.
05:25We're in the schools talking to students, warning them, educating them.
05:30However, those efforts are being undermined by what kids see online.
05:35So let's be honest about what's feeding this.
05:39The videos, the views, the likes, the fake clout.
05:44Social media platforms need to take this content down, not after it's gone viral, but before it can spread.
05:52And for the app developers who gamify this deadly behavior, you are part of the problem, too.
05:58We won't tolerate it, and neither should app stores.
06:03That's the work we're doing, and it's only possible because of strong leadership and execution at every level.
06:10I want to thank Deputy Mayor Kaz Daughtry for his focus on bringing drone technology into our subway surfing response during his time with the NYPD and still today as Deputy Mayor.
06:22And, of course, our Chief of Transit, Joseph Gulotta, our transit officers, our TARU drone teams for taking that vision and turning it into real, measurable public safety wins.
06:35Finally, I want to thank Mayor Adams for his vision on this issue.
06:39When people talk about defunding the police, what they're really talking about is stripping away the tools that make the NYPD's life-saving and crime-fighting work possible, like drones.
06:52Under Mayor Adams' leadership, for the past three years and seven months, the NYPD has not been stripped of these tools.
06:59We have been equipped with them.
07:02I think I speak on behalf of so many of the women and men of the NYPD when I say that we do not take that for granted, sir, and no one else should.
07:12I watched as Mayor Adams virtually single-handedly pulled the NYPD out of the defund abyss.
07:21The 200 lives saved that we celebrate today are to his direct credit.
07:28Now, I want to call up someone who knows the tragic consequences of subway surfing all too well.
