Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Holds Media Availability

July 17, 2020

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good morning, everybody. Let me note upfront, this city continues to fight the battle against the coronavirus and fights it well. All of you have a lot to be proud of. In a few minutes I'll talk about phase four and the specifics of how we're going to approach it. But the good news is we are on track for Monday, for phase four, with some specific approaches and modifications. But I'll talk about that in a moment, but first I want to talk about the battle against violence, the work we need to do every day to keep our streets safe, and the work we have to do at the community level at the grassroots, the crucial work of bonding police and community together in common cause. This is what neighborhood policing has been all about over the last seven years. And this is the work we will do now because we do not accept an increase in gun violence in New York City. We may be going through one of the most painful and exceptional moments in our history with this pandemic, we may be going through profound social dislocation and the breakdown of the basic functioning of our criminal justice system in terms of our courts, but that is never going to stop us from fighting back and from bringing police and community together and from the crucial work of emphasizing the ownership that people feel in their own communities.

I have seen it time and time again in recent days in Harlem and East Harlem and Bed-Stuy, people coming together to stop the violence and people who want to work with our police in common cause. Clergy, our civic organizations, elected officials, we depend on all of them. We depend on grassroots efforts to stop violence like the Cure Violence movement, the Crisis Management System. And we depend crucially on putting our police officers in the right locations with the right approaches and strategies. And that's what precision policing is all about. That's what CompStat has taught us for years. No one knows that better than our Commissioner, who has really perfected these strategies over many, many years. So, today we're going to outline a citywide violence prevention plan. And when I say citywide, you'll hear from the Commissioner, it will be wherever it's needed, but it will be particularly focused on some very particular sites in the city where we're seeing an uptick in violence and pinpointing the efforts to those sites to stop the violence again. So, we will combine a presence of police, particularly foot patrols – police right there at the front line, connecting with the community – with all those grassroots efforts and community efforts. That is what's going to move us forward. We've been through tough moments before, we've overcome them time and time again. And we have found that that combination, police in the right way in the right place and the right number with community support with community efforts combined is what works.

Now before the Commissioner speaks, today is a day we all reflect on. It is the sixth anniversary of the death of Eric Garner. And we can say today, and I said up in the Bronx when we had a moment to reflect painting the Black Lives mural in the Bronx, signing the legislation passed by the City Council, and I said there, and I want to say it again. We lost Eric Garner and we should not have lost Eric Garner. We never want to, again, in this city, ever again, lose another person in any circumstance like that. We never want to see that again in our city. And we've been working for six years to make sure it never happens again. But I truly believe that Eric Garner, even though he should be with us here today, he did not die in vain. From the moment we lost him, efforts at change and reform have progressed and they can progress today, deeper and deeper, and that work will never stop. So, we feel the pain and we feel the loss and I've spent a lot of time with the Garner family and I know how much pain they still feel, but I know they have joined into the efforts to move us forward and to focus on the changes and reforms that make us a better city and we'll bring police and community together in common cause.

And the last thing I want to say is that later on today, I think it was a fitting thing to do on a day like this, I will be spending time with young people in Harlem, a town hall meeting, to listen to them, not to talk at them, not to tell them what they should think, but to hear from them about what they need. They are the future of this city and how we can hear their needs in this time of challenge and work with them for a peaceful city and a better city ahead. So, with that, I want to turn to our Commissioner. He has been working very hard and we've had many, many conversations about the strategy to move forward and fight back this spate of gun violence. I want to emphasize, I have never seen anyone more systematically think about a challenge and figure out all the tools that need to be used and all the creative approaches. I've never seen anyone do that better than Dermot Shea. My pleasure to introduce our Commissioner.

Police Commissioner Dermot Shea: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I think challenge is the appropriate word. We know where we've come from, the last four months, but what's important for the New York City residents to know is we are incredibly focused on pushing back on the recent violence that we've seen throughout New York City, but very much localized in certain neighborhoods and even certain blocks. The men and women of this police department, the leadership of this police department is there for the residents, will continue to be there for the residents, and we are absolutely committed to making New York City streets safer. We have no intention of giving back to gang members any blocks that we have earned with our own sweat and blood over the years. With the recent uptick in violence, I have had a number of meetings over the last several weeks, both internally and externally, met a number of times with our district attorneys that I can tell you share that vision that I just outlined, in terms of making New York City streets as safe as possible for its residents. That is why we exist as public servants.

In terms of what we've been seeing across New York City, we've been seeing a sharp uptick in gun violence. When you look at certain neighborhoods, we've seen some neighborhoods in Harlem, we've seen some neighborhoods in South Jamaica have an uptick, certainly. But the biggest problems that we've been seeing has been in the Bronx and Brooklyn. We are moving all available resources to those areas. You'll see increased foot patrols, as well as officers in uniform, in marked police cars. We'll also be overlaying that with increased technology, everything from cameras that are mobile to license plate readers and everything in between, and all of this is being done to really focus on that small number of people that frankly just don't get it.

We're going to need help on this. We're going to need help from district attorneys, lawmakers, all community all coming together, cooperation, but I am very confident that we can turn this tide as we move forward out of this. I can tell you just since Monday we have had 13 arrests in shootings just this week. Now these incidents didn't occur this week, but 13 arrests as recently as last night, where uniformed patrol officers on the Upper West Side, responding to a shots-fired job, make an arrest minutes after a shooting had taken place. We have a lot of work to do, but I am confident that together with Community Affairs, with the community, with all partners and stakeholders working together, and with crystal clear deployment and laser focus, we can turn this tide.

Mayor: Thank you very much, Commissioner. I want to emphasize something the Commissioner's talked about, I've talked about. The Commissioner met with the Office of Court Administration, the State office that runs our court system and with the five DAs. And I know everyone earnestly wants to get the criminal justice system up and running again. I really do. I just want to emphasize that the City of New York will do anything and everything to help the Office of Court Administration bring back our court system, but not in just dribs and drabs. We want the court system back as fully as possible, as quickly as possible so we can address gun violence, so we can make sure there are consequences for anyone who harms another New Yorker. So, I want to emphasize how the NYPD, the City of New York, we will do anything and everything to help, but we need that to happen quickly and we need that to happen fully so we can really turn this corner.

With that, let me talk about turning a corner in a different way. And that's phase four and this is good news. We are moving forward with phase four on Monday. Now the State of New York is finishing some work today into this afternoon on the specifics, and they'll have a formal announcement later on, but I can give you the broad outlines now of what we've talked about with the State and where we agree that we can move forward safely. And it's all about safety. We want to bring people back to work. We want people to get their livelihoods back. We want to bring our city back, but safety and health first always. So, phase four, let's focus first on outdoors. And, again, outdoors has proven to be the area where we're seeing a lot of things work successfully. So, we're going to restart the low risk outdoor arts and entertainment activities. This means things like botanical gardens and zoos, for example. They can reopen, but at reduced capacity, 33 percent capacity. Production of movies, TV shows, that can proceed. The, obviously, something that matters to a lot of us – sports coming back but, again, without audiences. This is something that's been announced previously, but to emphasize that is part of phase four as well, that sports comes back. We'll get to watch it on television. I think it's going to be a great relief to a lot of us, and then particularly to all the baseball fans out there, and I'm one of them, we are so happy to see baseball coming back next week.

Now, outdoors looks very good. Indoors is where we have concerns. Some indoor activities can exist with the proper restrictions, but there's going to be care when it comes to indoors. Each and every situation is going to be looked at very carefully, very individually. So, some will not resume in phase four, certainly not right away. And that continues to be, first of all, indoor dining. That could have started earlier. We've said that's not happening. That continues to not happen. That is very high risk. And we've seen that around the country. Museums, not yet. Malls, not yet. Still closed for now. We've got to strike a balance and we've got time to look at the evidence, watch what's happening around the country, watch what's happening here in this city, and make further decisions on some of these pieces and we'll do that very carefully with the State of New York. But, look, if you just think back four months ago and think about how horrible the situation was, what we were fighting through, the pain that New Yorkers are going through. And then you think about the day when the four phases were announced and it was made clear that they could move in this kind of progression every two weeks. The fact that we are here is because of the hard work of all of you. And now that we've gotten this far, I'll say it now, and I'll say it many other times, let's hang on to it, let's stay focused, let's stay disciplined. We've got to keep bringing this city back, but that's going to take all of us playing our part.

Now, phase four, again means more and more people going back to work. And it is a reminder of the power of opening up the parts of our economy that we can do safely. And that brings me to something that's clearly been a real success, which is what we've seen with our restaurants. Incredible, incredible response to the Open Restaurants program. Now, 8,600 restaurants participating and that means a lot more jobs have come back. That means a lot of people are enjoying these restaurants and it's giving us hope and it's giving people energy to see this crucial part of New York City back. And look at that beautiful scene in Little Italy. That just gives you a lot of hope. So, the Open Streets element of this is also crucial. I'm going to talk about those pieces coming together, but let me make, first, an announcement on the Open Restaurants program, which has been such a great success – the sidewalks, the curbs. The Open Restaurants program has worked, it has brought back jobs, it has been safe, and therefore we will extend this initiative. The restaurants will be able to use the sidewalks. They'll be able to use the curbs through September, through October. We're extending this to October 31st.

Now we're also going to do more with the Open Streets and combining the Open Streets and the Open Restaurants for the good of everyone. So, today we're announcing 40 more blocks of Open Streets that will have dining Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. You're going to see that also in Chinatown, Manhattan, which has been an area that was so hard hit by this virus very early on. So, we're thrilled to see this'll be a big boost to Chinatown, but 40 blocks all over the city. And this will be starting immediately beginning this weekend. So, I know the weather won't entirely cooperate, but when the weather's good, I think a lot of New Yorkers will be out enjoying this wonderful opportunity, but again, do it the right way, do it the right way. Follow the rules, keep the distance as needed, wear those face coverings, help us keep moving forward.

A couple of things to conclude – one, a topic I come back to often, Alternate Side Parking. So, we've had Alternate Side Parking off for much of the time of this crisis. We do need to bring it back when it's important to clean up some more. So, we're going to bring it back for next week and I want to emphasize because there's been some confusion and we're really going to work hard to get this right for people – for folks that have Alternate Side Parking – so it will be on next week, if you typically just move your car once a week on your side of the street, then just do as you would normally would do Alternate Side Parking. If you're on one of those streets with multiple times a week and you see the image on your screen, if you're on the street with multiple times a week, we're trying to move off that going forward. In that instance, just move it on the last day indicated on the sign on your side of the street. Remember your side of the street is what matters and the sign on your side of the street. So, as you see on the visual, ignore the first day, go to the last day, and that's the one time we need you to move your car during the week when Alternate Side is in effect. And we're going to do a lot more to explain that to the people of the city and particularly folks on those blocks going forward.

Okay, let's do our indicators. First, number one, daily number of people admitted to hospitals for suspected COVID-19, threshold of 200. Today's report, 75 patients. Number two, daily number of people in Health + Hospitals ICUs, threshold 375. Today's report, 314 patients. And people tested citywide, number three, tested citywide positive for COVID-19, threshold is 15 percent. Once again, today, two percent – a very good number, really striking consistency. And that is a credit to all of you. A few words in Spanish –

[Mayor de Blasio speaks in Spanish]

Yes, Commissioner, baseball sounds the same in Spanish.

[Laughter]

Commissioner Shea: [Inaudible]

Mayor: That's right. You can say that. Everybody, we will now turn to questions from our colleagues in the media, and please let me know the name and outlet of each journalist.

Moderator: Hi, all. Just a reminder that we have with us today, Police Commissioner Shea, Transportation Commissioner Trottenberg, Small Business Commissioner Doris, and Senior Advisor, Dr. Varma. With that, I'll start with Marcia from CBS.

Question: Mr. Mayor, I wondered if I could ask you and the Police Commissioner about the fact that a man who was caught on video and arrested for attacking Chief Monahan and three police officers was released without bail. I wonder how you feel about that and what message it sends to people who might feel that it's open season and they can attack cops at will.

Mayor: Yeah. Marcia, I am very unhappy about that and it does not make sense to me. It really doesn't. First of all, Terry Monahan is a friend of mine and I have great respect for him and he's out there every day trying to protect everyone in the city and to see someone assault him, a Chief of Department, absolutely unacceptable. Assaulting any police officer, absolutely unacceptable. And there needs to be consequences. And that's why I say we need our court system up and running, but also in a case like this, it does not make sense to me. If you assault a police officer, you're assaulting all of us, and there needs to be clear consequences. So, that just doesn't make sense to me. Commissioner, you want to –

Commissioner Shea: I mean, Marcia, I think, you know my answer to that. I mean, it's very frustrating. I think the world, at times, seems like it's upside down. I mean, we got to do better than that. But what I said in an interview yesterday was, I was at – I stopped in and spent quite a bit of time yesterday at a CompStat meeting, Brooklyn violence, and who was running the meeting and who was sitting right behind him? It was the Chief that was assaulted and the Lieutenant that was assaulted, both went to the hospital, treated, and back to work the next day, talking about how to keep New Yorkers safe. So, you know, that's what I'll pull out of that incident. Obviously, we got to do better as a society and there needs to be consequences for people that just have no regard for laws.

Mayor: Go ahead, Marcia.

Question: Mr. Mayor, my second question has to do with your restaurant program, your Open Streets and Open Restaurants program. I know you're expanding it, but we've been getting complaints from a number of restaurant owners who say they've been getting hit with compliance notifications, threats of fines or penalties, and they're not getting enough direction from DOT on how to fix the issues. Is there anything you can do to provide better guidance and anything you can do to help these restaurants who desperately need to stay open?

Mayor: Absolutely. Marcia. Look, I've talked to a lot of restaurant owners. I understand their concerns and we're acting on it right now. We don't want to find anyone in the restaurant community, any small business – we don't want to ever see a restaurant that gets into this program not succeed. We want to help them succeed. So, Marcia, what happened is – look, the original guidance, which was done really with a sense of urgency. And you remember, we did something very unusual. We let people self-certify, it took like five minutes to do the form and you were up and running. The fact is we learned some things in the process about areas where we had to do a little bit better on safety. And we came back and said, hey, guys, we have to tighten up these pieces. And we're working with those restaurants to do it. It's not contentious, it's cooperative. But the message I've sent to DOT and all our agencies is, help restaurants get to a positive solution. Now, if a restaurant bluntly refuses, which I don't think is the case hardly ever, that's a different matter. But what I've heard is, restaurant owners want to get it right. The agencies want to get it right, they're communicating more and more, and that we're going to resolve things. So, any restaurant owner that is having a problem that you don't feel you're getting the right cooperation, please call 3-1-1. We'll connect you with Department of Transportation, Small Business Services, the folks who can work with you to resolve the problem, because we want to get these problems fixed.

Moderator: Next we have Henry from Bloomberg.

Question: Hello, Mr. Mayor. How are you today?

Mayor: Good, Henry. How are you doing?

Question: Okay. I wanted to ask you about the Governor's order that people can't go up to a bar – an open-air bar and just get a drink without dining. A lot of the science says that actually eating spreads the virus more readily than drinking. I don't want to start a fight between you and the Governor, but when you're opening these restaurants and you want to increase the action, will this hinder the growth of these jobs?

Mayor: Look, Henry, first of all, I respect the State's decisions in the middle of this crisis. And in terms of what impact it might have on jobs, I think it's important that we hear from the restaurant community on that. Obviously, that is a concern. But what I want to emphasize is, overwhelmingly, restaurants and bars in New York City have been in compliance. We've been out there constantly with a variety of agencies, particularly the Sheriff's Office that's done great work here, and constantly documented the levels of compliance, which are very, very high. Sometimes things have to be corrected, but people tend to follow the instructions quickly, whether it's customers or the restaurant and bar owners. So, we have not seen a really profound problem with compliance here. There's always some images that raise concerns, but if you really look at the facts and the details it's quite clear that people in New York City take this virus very, very seriously and the people who own the businesses do too. And there's a good article in Politico today that goes into some of those details about the fact that New Yorkers really have stayed in compliance. So, look, I respect the State's decisions, but I want make really clear how much I appreciate that people have done the hard work on the ground to open these businesses and try and make them work the right way.

Moderator: Henry, do you have a –

Question: I do have another question and it's a completely separate topic. I'm wondering why the concept of the commuter tax has completely disappeared from your discourse in anyone else's discourse when the City is facing a fiscal crisis?

Mayor: It's a very fair question, Henry. Look, the commuter tax was there for a long time. It was fair. It was really about asking people came in and use the services of this city to help contribute to them. But I also understand the really challenging politics in Albany. I think the huge mistake was ever letting it go away. It's a very hard thing to get back, but what I think is gaining traction as an alternative to address the State and City fiscal crisis – like deep, deep crises that can only be compared to the 1970s – is the idea of taxes on the wealthy. I mean, wealthy people are doing very, very well despite this crisis where working people are suffering on an unprecedented manner. You have to go back generations to find a time where so many working people were unemployed and suffering so deeply. So, I think it is the right time to ask more of those among us who have done very, very well.

Moderator: Next we have Michael from the Daily News.

Question: Good morning, Mr. Mayor. How are doing?

Mayor: How are you doing, man?

Question: I'm good. Two questions, the first one – yesterday, and I think today you may have said the same thing, you described the incident involving Terry Monahan as unacceptable. And, you know, we've seen other kind of violent incidents stem out of this Occupy City Hall encampment – you know, a reporter attacked, but with a two-by-four; there were some TV reporters who are also attacked. So, my question is, at what point is it unacceptable enough that, that the City actually refuses to accept it and has the police go in and disperse the encampment?

Mayor: Michael, first of all, we look at each incident, and I don't have all the specifics about the individuals involved. I don't know if they were associated with one group or another. I don't tend to think of people all in one fell swoop. I want to know what's happened in each individual incident. As we've gone through months of real concerns and protest being raised around the City, the vast, vast majority of people have been peaceful. There's a few who have chosen violence and that will never be accepted. But to the question of what's going on with that particular site, I've been really clear, we respect freedom of speech, but we must see safety and we have to protect safety at the same time, and we're always striking that balance, and I'm always listening to the NYPD's assessment of how best to do that.

Moderator: Michael, do you have another question?

Question: Yeah, one more. Yeah, this is from our folks at The Shack for Commissioner Shea. What's the plan to replace the anti-crime unit? Will there be another unit form that's, you know, somewhat analogous to it?

Commissioner Shea: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for the question. So, when you look at – when you look at the state of New York City right now, the violent uptick, the level of arrests made, I think you have to look at all of this together. When you look at the amount of guns that are seized, but one that's not often talked about is what happens after the fact and the prosecution of those guns and the state of this court system right now. We look at that not in pieces, we look at it in its entirety when we make decisions about deployment, when we make decisions about strategically how do we keep New Yorkers safe? So, to answer to your question is, we think about it all, it is a fluid situation, but what we need help with right now – and I want to look forward, not back – but all things are connected here. We, just in the last year and a half, we have about 2,000 open gun cases. Half of them are indicted. We need the price of carrying an illegal firearm in New York City to be felt. We know we don't necessarily need more gun arrests, we need the people that are caught to be prosecuted fully, and then we need the court systems open to get them off the street as quickly as possible. So, when we have all those things working, that's a huge piece of this equation, but we are constantly evaluating how we deploy, how we do it smarter and how we do it in a way that when we make gun arrests, they get prosecuted fully.

Mayor: I just want to add and bring back one piece here, Michael. Again, I think sometimes when there's events swirling around there's assumptions made and if you listen carefully to what the Commissioner has been saying over recent weeks, he is always looking at the big picture. It's one of the things I appreciate deeply about him and that decision around the anti-crime unit was not just based on current events, it's something the Commissioner had been thinking about for a variety of reasons for a long time. And, Commissioner, just to, if you would add for a moment, I think is important for the people of the city to just to understand a little more of the context of what you thought could be achieved, going forward, with a different approach.

Commissioner Shea: Yeah, I absolutely think – and I said this publicly – I think that the manner in which we get guns off the street will continue. It has to continue, but it has to be done in a way that also builds trust with the community, number one. Number two, when we have a situation where I've repeatedly – you know, maybe we'll start inviting you to some of these CompStat that meetings and Chief LePetri can go through this in detail with you. When we have situations – I heard many of them yesterday – when we have individuals involved in current violence throughout this city, and then when you look at their rap sheet, they have three, four, five prior gun arrests. You just have to stop and shake your head and say, what is going on? There's got to be a different way to do this in terms of getting guns off the street, but doing it in a way that builds trust with the community and also getting people prosecuted. So, this is the big picture that we look at. And again, when you look at this state of populations of incarcerated individuals and you tie it with COVID, the anti-crime is a piece of this, but it is a small piece of what's going on. The level of activity in the NYPD, for a number of reasons, to include protests, COVID, and other factors goes well beyond just a small number of officers deployed to anti-crime.

Mayor: Thank you.

Moderator: Next we have Juliet from 1010 WINS.

Question: Hi, good morning, all. So, Commissioner, could you expound on that? You say you want to get guns off the streets and build trust in the community – with the community. So, how do you go about that?

Commissioner Shea: Well, we do it. I think if you look just even this week, we're making gun arrests, Julia. It starts with proper deployment. It continues with relentless follow-up, detailed investigations, using technology, working with the community. And, you know, you look at – you've heard me – we have pioneered in this city, Juliet, precision policing. And sometimes there's too many arrests and sometimes there's not enough arrest, and that's a fluid state. But what is most important in that equation is getting the most out of the arrest that you make and being precise about where violence is happening, who's committing it, and getting people off the street as quickly as possible that are committing violence and really terrorizing neighborhoods in New York City. And that works best when we have everything working together, cops, community, prosecutors, laws, everything.

Mayor: Go ahead, Juliet.

Question: Yes, thank you. Mr. Mayor, this question is for you. Does there come a point when you, as the Mayor, just put your foot down and say the violence has to stop? We have a one year old who was shot, we have a young man with a great future who was shot by indiscriminate gun violence. You know, we're hearing this from community leaders. We hear this from police officials, but where was your message – a very forceful to say, this is enough?

Mayor: Juliet, you know, I've said it so many times and I'll say it again. The violence has to stop is not acceptable and we're going to beat it back. I've really made that clear in Bed-Stuy when I went to visit with the mom and the grandma of Davell, and in so many other locations. But again, we have to all decide we're going to do this together. And I would say to all of you who report the news, please, when all of us make clear that we are resolute in fighting back violence and that we are engaging communities to do it, because the police cannot do it alone, please make sure that message gets through too. I stood with community members in Harlem last Saturday night, and their passion was clear. They were not going to accept violence in community. They were putting themselves out there with the Occupy the Corners effort. And this is what we have been devoted to for years, we have driven down crime steadily in this city until we reached this horrible situation in recent months. But nonetheless, we're going to beat it back again. So, not only is it not acceptable to have violence in our city, we will defeat it.

Moderator: Next we have Gloria from NY1.

Question: Good morning, Mr. Mayor – and for the Commissioner as well – the Police Department put out the most updated data this morning, showing a drop in arrest across several different categories in the last couple of weeks. So, I wondered if both you and the commissioner can speak to that. As we are seeing this increase in violence, we're also seeing this massive drop in arrest. So, I guess, first, if you could speak to the numbers – you know, they're not small percentages.

Mayor: Sure, but it is a matter of weeks. So, I want to put this in perspective and the Commissioner will speak to it. Gloria, we, as a city, have gone through so many, absolutely unpredictable, extraordinary, unprecedented realities in just a few months. We've got to keep that front and center in our thinking. Despite all that, overall index crime is still down this year compared to last year. The NYPD continues, as you just heard from the Commissioner, to be out there vigorously going after those who perpetrate the violence. But the last weeks have come with so many different challenges and there's had to be some regrouping and preparing for a new approach that really precisely focuses on where the violence is. And as the Commissioner will tell you, that is some particular neighborhoods, even in some cases particular blocks within neighborhoods. But also getting more and more officers out to the neighborhoods where they're needed, and that redeployment has been happening over the last few weeks. So, sometimes, when you layer crisis upon crisis upon crisis, it takes some time to regroup and formulate a new strategy, but that's exactly what the NYPD has been doing, and you're going to see the evidence of that starting this week and beyond. Commissioner?

Commissioner Shea: Yeah. Gloria, you know, I've spoken to a lot of these issues already. I think there's a lot of factors behind it. In some circumstances, I'm not as concerned, to be truthful, then in some circumstances I am concerned. What New Yorkers need to know is that, from myself down – from the executive staff, to precinct commanders, to borough commanders to the men and women, detectives and police officers and all the civilian members, we are committed to keeping New Yorkers safe. We have a lot of work to do and this environment. We have to be smart about it, strategic about it. We're going to need a lot of help. We're going to need help from everyone that I've mentioned before – community members, elected officials, lawmakers, you know, to include prosecutors. But we can get this under control, I truly believe we can, but we're going to need a lot of things to go right. We need to get to a place where we police the city fairly, effectively, and we get dangerous people off the street as quickly as possible. We need consequences. I think those are lacking. I've spoken ad nauseum. I've been criticized for speaking about it over the last six months, but we can get it going right. But Gloria, I would point out too that, just take a look at some of the work I mentioned – 13 arrests just since Monday on shootings and homicides. Our detectives are out there. Patrol, making an arrest last night, running towards the danger, towards somebody – a violent person that should not be on the street, multiple open cases already, shooting somebody last night, running towards it and recovering the gun and getting them off the street. So, the police officers and detectives are out there. They're out there for New Yorkers, and that's what I want people to know.

Mayor: Go ahead, Gloria.

Question: Thank you. If I could follow up, it looks like if we take gun arrests alone, 67 percent decrease – Mr. Commissioner, it sounds like you are saying that it's not just a question of the arrest, but what happens after an arrest is made. So, are you saying that there's a problem here with how the law is being applied? And if the Mayor could speak to that as well – is there a disagreement here between what the law is and how bail is being applied? Can you just speak to that, it seems like –

Mayor: Gloria, look, I think it's more foundational than that. And I've said it a bunch of times – so, again, I'm to challenge – with great respect to my colleagues in the media, I'm going to challenge you to actually report what I said. Listen, the court system is not functioning. You can't have the ability to get people off the streets if the court system's not functioning. And again, I do feel for everyone in the court system that they're dealing with real challenges, and we want everyone to be healthy and safe, but could we be real and honest about this? We are asking our police officers to go out there and do their normal work, but without the other pieces of the equation working. So, I respect our prosecutors deeply, but I am pleading with all of them to focus on gun prosecutions and move gun prosecutions more aggressively and effectively, working with the NYPD. And I am pleading with the State Office of Court Administration to reopen the court system fully. If you then combine the work you just heard from the Commissioner – our officers running towards danger, arrest someone with a gun, now there's a prosecution, there's an outcome, those who need to be in prison are in prison. That's what we need to get functioning again to protect our communities. And the last thing, before turning to the Commissioner, what I've said to a lot of you, I'm going to say it again – the day Bill Bratton said this to me years ago was an eye-opener for me – in a city of 8.6 million people, it is a few thousand who are creating most of the gun violence – obviously, overwhelmingly, gang and crew members. A very small number of people who do not represent the communities that are all trying to live in peace. But we need those individuals to be prosecuted and there to be proper consequences, and, obviously, that is not happening now. Commissioner?

Commissioner Shea: Yeah. Gloria, I'll try to be brief. I've been accused of talking too long, I'm very passionate on this issue. We have, we have 2000 open gun cases right now, just from this year and last year and more prior – half of them are indicted already. Probably the other half would be indicted if there was the ability to get an indictment this year, that's a significant core group of individuals that terrorize New Yorkers and carry illegal firearms on the streets of this city. The arrest is almost irrelevant. What happens to the prosecution and members of the NYPD work – I couldn't tell you how close they work together with our partners in the different district attorney's offices and Southern and Eastern district to try to get the most out of these, but we need New Yorkers' help too. When you get, when you get that grand jury subpoena, when it finally comes in the mail, we need you to participate in this system. We need you to tell your elected officials that you demand that people that carry guns on the streets prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Everyone has a shared responsibility in this and Gloria, it's it there's a lot of pieces to, but a significant piece is exactly what the Mayor just said – you know, there's other laws. We can debate that until the cows come home again. But right now with this environment with COVID, I think people should be standing up on the highest step and saying, I demand to have safety. I demand to have an operating court system. My children's lives are at stake. We can't have a system – public safety is at risk here where the courts are not fully operated. This is 2020 and we should have better.

Mayor: Amen. Go ahead.

Moderator: Next we have Reuvain from Hamodia

Question: Good morning, Mr. Mayor and Mr. Commissioners. Nice to see you again. I wanted to ask you, Mr. Mayor, a couple of days ago several of your police officers were attacked, including your Chief of Department, for the first 24 hours you did not issue a public statement or a tweet. It was only 24 hours after the attack when a reporter asked you about it, that you condemned the attack. During that time, you found time to make 11 tweets about police reform. So why did you not respond within 24 hours publicly, and how should that be interpreted by all New Yorkers from cops to criminals?

Mayor: It shouldn't – Reuvain, look, again, your questions always have a particular bias to them God bless you, but let's be clear about the facts. Over the weekend we saw something like this and I condemned it. We don't accept any attacks on police officers. I've said it so many times and I mean it, and I want everyone to understand that it's just literally unacceptable in a free society. You cannot attack the people who serve and protect us, said it many, many times in many circumstances, if you'd like a long list, we'll get you on Reuvain. Sometimes, I'll be the first to say, we should overemphasize that message. I'm perfectly comfortable saying we should have, again, I work with a big team here – we were doing a lot of different things, we should have put that message out sooner, but anyone who's been listening knows I say it constantly, and I want to get to the day where I don't have to say it because people respect our police officers and don't ever even think of attacking them, and what I'm trying to build is a city where there's mutual respect between police and community. So that we change the environment for the better. I have seen real progress with neighborhood policing. I'm not going to let anything about this multiple crisis of the Corona virus the worst healthcare crisis in the century, the worst economic crisis in 90 years, a social justice crisis that disparity crisis, an employment crisis, a fiscal crisis. This is all happening simultaneously. It's never happened before in the city's history. I'm not going to let that make it impossible for me to see that for six full years, we implemented neighborhood policing and move this city forward, and we will continue that work and resume that work no matter what, and that's the way forward. Go ahead, Reuvain
.
Question: My next question is for the Commissioner. Mr. Commissioner, Chief Monahan and other leadership has repeatedly said that there's low morale in the Police Department. I'd like to ask if you agree with that, and if yes, what's the cause, and then what can be done to improve that the Mayor can answer that as well. Thank you.

Commissioner Shea: Yep. I think I think Terry Monahan has his pulse on the cops that work for him. It's a tough time right now. I think everyone, you don't need to be in the police department to understand that open, open the papers any day. I mean, it's a tough time to be in law enforcement right now. This, I don't think this is just about this city. It's about the country. I think it's imperative on all New Yorkers, all people in leadership positions to recognize this, to work together to fix it, and that's certainly what I'm committed to doing.

Mayor: Yeah, and Reuvain, tell the stories of the people who work with the police and the police who work with them. I understand that it's very tempting to just report the bad or just report the controversial, but I beseech you all for the good in New York City – tell the stories that everyday stories thousands upon thousands of stories every day where police officers show respect for community members, community members show respect for police officers, people thank each other people work together. People fight crime together. I see that every single time when I go out in communities and talk to real people. So yeah, I think there are real challenges here, and I understand a lot of our officers are going through a lot right now. We've got to support them, and I believe fundamentally that the reforms we are doing will bring us to that point of greater trust and mutual respect, and that's when I think everyone's morale goes up.

Moderator: Last two for today. Next we have Julia from the Post.

Question: Hey, good morning, Mr. Mayor, Mr. Police Commissioner, Mr. Mayor, could I ask a quick kind of public service question before my two questions?

Mayor: I think you get two questions, my friend. So, you decide how you want to use them.

Question: Okay. I'll field that one to your press office. I'm wondering if you and the Commissioner could put some meat on the bones of this new anti-crime prevention strategy. For example, how many officers will be shifted to these high crimes areas? What exactly will they be doing? Is it just the foot patrol that their presence will be deterring crime? Can you just flesh it out a little bit? There wasn't many details – there weren't many details in the press release, either.

Mayor: I appreciate the question, Julia, I'll start and the Commissioner will obviously be able to give you much more, but I think the point is again, so the time I have spent in CompStat sessions has taught me what I never would have known as a layman, how specific the reality is, how much the NYPD understands exactly where to pinpoint, and again, a lot of times it's not a whole neighborhood. It's a very small section of neighborhood and it's very specific individuals, and I think the constant refining of that effort is part of this and then getting many more cops to be present in those areas as a deterrent, and then the close working connection with the community to show the community support, and also just the deterrence of efforts like Occupy the Corners. So all of these things come together, but in terms of number of officers, and locations, the Commissioner will give you more.

Commissioner Shea: Yeah, and let me start Julia. Nice try with the question, with the third question there, but I recently appointed Chief Jeff Maddrey to be the Chief of Community Affairs, and one of the things I said to him and it ties to this is, you know, you're the Chief of Community Affairs, but I think that's a misnomer. I consider all 35,000 cops to be community affairs, and when we get to that point, that's where exactly we should be. It's not, it's not the men and women that work for Jeff Maddrey to work with the community, it's all cops, and the second point of that is the exact same answer for anti-crime. There's not a small segment of cops that "anti-crime." They do phenomenal work [inaudible] that all police offices fight crime, whether you're in uniform, whether you're in plain clothes, whether you're working inside analyzing crime or whether you're on a foot post, we are all committed to exactly what we're doing here, and that's keeping New Yorker safe. Hundreds and hundreds of offices are being redeployed from inside positions, from outside positions, but just what we do every day in CompStat, you know, certain crime categories have down right now, we can afford the ability to shift those resources. So, these are detectives and police officers that are already out on the street, but just being shifted to incredibly specific areas. The intelligence is there. We know it, we know what the problems are. We know what our obstacles are in terms of courts and getting people to cooperate in investigations, and we know exactly where to put the cops and it's not a neighborhood. It is two square blocks in an area, and believe me, the people that live on those blocks know all too well because they hear the gunshots. So, we are on it. We are deploying to stop it, and we are working incredibly close with our partners. Believe me, the prosecutors are sick of seeing my face and Terry Monahan's face, and when the phone rings and they, you know, we are all in this together we're going to be pulling the community more into this. We're going to be pulling the community more into this with Jeff Maddrey and not just Jeff Maddrey, all precinct commanders and sitting down with the community, with their cops, with their detectives and having detective stand up and saying, this is what I'm investigating in your community. This is what I need help with who can, who can tell us about this, so it's good. Listen, we're going to get out of this, and we are going to put a stop to this violence. It's going to be incredibly difficult with all – when you don't have an operating court system, I hate to be a broken record, we've got to be incredibly –  it's taken an incredible amount of resources to put it in areas where there's violence is happening, and then let me just say this too. We pioneered precision policing. We've driven arrests down in this city by concentrating on people that unfortunately are willing to carry a gun, pull it out, and use it, and we've done a number of takedowns. When those courts are opened up, we have a line of cases ready to get the most violent people off the streets. We need the court's help.

Mayor: Amen. Go ahead, Julia.

Question: Okay. On the courts, actually, this question comes from my colleague, Craig McCarthy in the [inaudible]. 20 of the people who were arrested or one in for shootings in June, actually only one had an open case per these own numbers. So, you're saying that the court slowdown has led to shootings, but a lot of these folks don't actually have open cases.

Commissioner Shea: I have to see exactly what you're referring to last night. Here's what I'm referring to. I think we've demonstrated, I think you've sat at the press conferences with me, with Bob Boyce before me with Mike LiPetri, with Terry Monahan, with Rodney Harrison and on and on, we are seeing a significant uptick in gang violence. We know exactly who's involved. If you were sitting in that CompStat meeting last night, you would hear the frustration of some of the command level officers in terms of, again, everything I've said, and we are ready to take violent people off the street, we need help that's Point A, that's nothing to do with what you just said. Last night in the bar in Manhattan, we again, we made an arrest of a person shooting somebody – that person has two open cases, a robbery at knife point, a grand larceny, a third one that's not open. Arrested recently, drugs and dice and the usual story. I don't know the exact examples of what you're referring to, but please you cannot ignore the fact of what the prison and jail populations were, what they are now, and then combine that with no one is going in large scale because there is no ability to indict people right now, there is an incredible downward pressure because of a lot of factors that we've said ad nauseum, to keep people out of jail.

Mayor: And I just want to add to that really quick, Julia, I mean, imagine the frustration of the community residents, and I talked to community residents all the time. They know exactly who is the violence. The NYPD knows who is doing the violence. Everyone wants to not be victimized by a very, very few individuals who are creating harm for everyone else. I mean, we lost a one-year-old for God sakes, to people who unfortunately are involved regularly in violence, and this can be stopped, but all of the prosecutors need to play their role, and the Commissioner mentioned, we were working very closely with the federal government as well, Eastern District, Southern District. We need all prosecutors to play their role, bring those indictments. We need the court system to function. We need to start moving this again, and look, this is a city that is coming back in so many ways. Everyone needs to participate. Do it safely, do it with health, you know, health as the first consideration. But we also have to protect people's lives out in our communities. If we get the prosecutions to start again, we get the court system up to full speed. We can break the back of this violence.

Moderator: Last one for today. We have Henry from PIX 11.

Question: Good morning, Mr. Mayor I'm want to shift gears with this last question of ongoing conversation about schools. We've been speaking with a number of teachers' worry. They don't have enough of a seat at the table. We know you've been speaking with the union, but teachers are worried they're not – their voices aren't being heard quite enough. Are you concerned about you're going to see a strike in the extreme, but at least one where a lot of educators are saying, listen, I'm not going to do anything but online – your in-person plans be damned. Are you concerned about that?

Mayor: First of all, it's a great question, Henry. I appreciate it because we want people to have confidence. We want teachers, educators, staff, parents, kids, everyone to know that the focus is on bringing back schools in a healthy, safe manner. We've got two months to show people over and over again, how that's going to be done, and it's going to be done based on the data, and if at any point the data tells us we need to change direction. We will, but we've been working incessantly with the two main unions of educators and the union to represent staff. But we welcome more and more educators into that discussion. I'll have that conversation with the chancellor. We certainly want to hear the voices of grassroots educators their concerns, answer their concerns, or if they're raising new things we need to address. We want that.

Some folks are concerned because they have preexisting medical conditions. Those folks will get an exemption obviously. We know there'll be a certain number of our educators who will not be able for health reasons to be in school, and those educators will be devoted to our remote learning. But Henry, there's a lot of educators who want to come back deeply. I've talked to a lot of them. I've been out in communities. A lot of teachers will come up to me and say that they are a teacher and they want to talk to me about it, and I constantly say, do you want to go back or not? And I have not met a teacher yet who doesn't want to go back because they're devoted to the kids and they know the kids just can't get as good an education remotely. But yes, we want to hear those voices and we want to really be respectful of their concerns, and I think, I think you're going to see the vast majority who are healthy will want to be at their posts because they want to help our kids move forward. Go ahead, Henry.

Question: Drilling down into kind of a tangential issue to one that you mentioned, I know you figured out the medical exemption form this week. I've seen how teachers can go online and fill that out. What sort of processes are being discussed for educators that aren't vulnerable themselves, but have a vulnerable person in their home, such as an infant child or a diabetic spouse, or what sort of work-arounds are you doing for those tangential people in educators' lives?

Mayor: We want to know in those cases, the specifics and want to be respectful, but it's all case by case. But look, everyone's devoted to health and safety. It was painful to shut down the schools. But I said at the time when we did it that I didn't think we'd be able to come back this last school year. I was very adamant as we went along, it was not the right time to do it. Now because the City of New York has been so successful in fighting back this disease, I'm hopeful that in two months, you know, with a lot of hard work and a constant obsession with health and safety, we will be ready, but any individual who's got a specific problem they need to bring it to the attention of their supervisors at DOE, and we want to look at that because we want to make sure they and their families are healthy.

We also have an obligation and remember, Henry, we're dealing with something very unusual here. Rarely in life do you get to hear the voices of so many everyday people? You know, we had 400,000 parents who responded to our survey and 75 percent overwhelming majority said, we want our kids back in school, and I work for those parents. I worked for them. I have to respect their needs and concerns, and their kids need an education, and no one is pretending that remote learning is as good as what happens in the classroom. So, we're going to work really hard to get this right. But anyone who has an exceptional situation, we really want to hear that and we want to work with them.

Well, everyone, as we close, let's just talk about this day as we get ready for Monday. So Monday, Phase Four, what a striking reality, after everything we went through again in March and April, all the pain, all the challenges, all the loss, the fact that we are now looking at the fourth Phase, of four and it will start on time, and yes, there are some pieces that won't be ready. But the fact that there are also pieces that will move forward is a testament to what all of you have done, and, and a lot of times, you know, I talked to people from around the country, a lot of them are going through really hell right now, and they ask what was different here? Why were you able to come back? And I always say, it's because of the people, it's because of New Yorkers is because of your strength and your resiliency, it's because of your commitment. You know, a lot of people thought that how could this place, this crowded, energetic place possibly do shelter-in-place or social distancing or face coverings? Well, you proved to the world, it could be done the right way, and that's why we are now on the verge of Phase Four. So, any time anyone suggested doubt, I always say to anyone who has a lot of doubt about this place, you obviously don't know New Yorkers. You obviously don't know the power and the passion of New Yorkers, and you don't know what New Yorkers are capable about if you doubt – capable of, if you doubt New York City. If you really know New Yorkers, then you have faith in this place and our future, and I want to thank everyone for your hard work and let's go on now to Phase Four.

Thanks, everybody.