Yesterday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul appeared on 570 WSYR for an interview with Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick, who served as guest host. The discussion touched on several issues affecting law enforcement and public safety in the state.
District Attorney Fitzpatrick opened the conversation by expressing gratitude to Governor Hochul for her support of recent reforms to discovery laws in New York. He said, “I just want to thank you again — I’ve done it before, but I’ll thank you again to a larger audience for your steadfast support of that to make it so that, for example, if I have 15 body-worn camera footage on a case, and I turn over 14 and by accident I don’t turn over the 15th, it doesn’t result in the automatic dismissal of the case. It’s more of a common sense approach. Did it affect the outcome? Did it affect justice? So thank you for that, Governor. We really — myself and my colleagues really appreciate that.”
Governor Hochul responded by highlighting her focus on practical changes to state law: “That was a statewide initiative. Every district attorney in the state asked us to do something with that and I just would say that, as you mentioned, common sense reform — that’s what I’m all about. I’m from Upstate New York — common sense is how we live our lives…I fought on bail reform. I fought on discovery reform…I think we’re going to see a dramatic difference in the number of repeat offenders.”
The conversation also addressed cooperation between local police agencies and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Governor Hochul explained her position: “My number one priority is to keep people in the state safe, public safety — number one, two and three, in fact. And I will work hard with any federal agency, including ICE, to remove people who’ve committed crimes in their own country or committing crimes in this country…But what was promised to us by the President when he said he was going to have this effort to remove people? It was only the ones that were committing serious crimes…But what has happened is…they’re going after people who have been here for decades…And they’re even now taking children.” She continued: “We need our local police focused on local crimes…ICE has enough resources…our focus at the state and local level must be protecting our residents and not having our police distracted going out there taking children out of a high school like what happened in Nassau County or people being taken out of daycare centers.”
She further commented on federal-local cooperation agreements known as 287(g) agreements: “Most counties do not have them…I just want to say that most counties in the state do not have these agreements…but there’s something called 287(g) agreements…you’re basically deputizing local police to do ICE’s job for them on civil enforcement…criminal we’ll help; civil, I don’t think it’s appropriate.”
Both officials reflected positively on their past collaborations around law enforcement policy.
The full audio recording of Governor Hochul’s remarks is available through 570 WSYR.