 Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us for today's public safety briefing led by deputy mayor for public safety fill banks Following our last speaker, we will take a few questions from the media followed by some questions that have been submitted by the public ahead of today's briefing I would now like to turn it over to deputy mayor fill banks. Good afternoon everyone and Welcome I Thought we were taking that welcome line out. No, okay, welcome Before we begin I would be remiss if we did not discuss the three unfortunate incidents that occurred yesterday In which in my PD officers responded to scenes involving armed individuals The first with the handgun second with the knife and a third with an air gun that resembled the pistol And one of those incidents the person is unfortunately now deceased and the other two the individuals are in stable condition Those events are still under investigation and in my PD will provide more information in the future The bottom line here is that there are just too many weapons on our streets and to the story bottom line The NYPD and other city agencies have seized thousands and thousands of illegal guns over the past year And we will continue to work to drive down gun violence But the fact of the matter is there are still too many weapons on our streets As you may recall last week one or third precinct officer Brett bowler Was responding to a call to investigate a dispute on the bus in Queens when a suspect shot him in the hip a man fight dispute over a Seat on a bus Involved at a shot being fired on the New York City Street. I just want us to think about that for a second a Dispute over a seat and a shot is fired in New York City Officer bowler underwent surgery at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center and was released just this afternoon But he has a long recovery ahead of him We all thankful for his he survived grateful for a service we're praying for him and we're so well in his recovery Today, I'm joined here by NYPD chief of patrol John shell Chief patrols responsible for patrol operations in New York City just to keep it short If you are you 99% of the uniform you see somebody winning uniform in some form of fashion a report to John shell or Precincts report to a bro command or bro commands report to John shell We also have sheriff Anthony Miranda with us and we have a very special guest The newly appointed rat. I love to determine are the rats are of New York City director of rodent medication Kathleen Karate as We know public health and public safety go hand in hand So we are very happy to have Kathleen with us here today, and we have from a shortly If you're watching from home for the first time today We use these briefings to give the public a more in-depth look at what the New York City administration is doing to keep our city safe And answer some questions from the public. I Encourage everyone to go on to hear from Eric calm To receive the latest updates from the mayor on the most issues that are most important to you Each time we hold one of these briefings We will ask you ahead of time through emails if you have any questions you would like to have answered and At the end of the briefing we will answer as many of those questions that we have time for and The ones that we don't have time for we will get back to you The first issue we hear to talk about today is a major concern for a lot of people And that is the presence of these smoke shops across our city that are legally selling marijuana products I said the smoke shops that are illegally selling cannabis products Not smoke shops in general because there are smoke shops who are operating lawfully I Want to make it clear what the difference here is There are currently four legal cannabis retailers operating in New York City three in Manhattan and one in Queens These stores are licensed by the state and the products that they sell are regulated What I mean by regulated they're tested in the lab So you can be sure that the product that you are paying for is a product that you'll receive Which means that aside from these four license locations If you're purchasing cannabis at another shop one you do not know what you're ingesting To the shop is operating illegally so therefore it is illegal sale Three what we're going to talk about here today is that you may actually be putting yourself in danger Just by being a customer in one of those stores. We're gonna talk about that briefly As chief shell will detail for us in the amendment these stores have become a hot spot for robberies Because they often deal in large quantities of cash Why they deal in large quantities of cash because it is still against federal law to put money into a bank If it comes from the proceeds of cannabis So subsequently there's a large amount of cash and a large amount of cash attracts the bad guys bad girls or people who are Gaze in illegal activities such as robbery So it is a threat in addition to just we're not sure about what the what you're buying or the product They're selling it's also a haven for a lot of arbiters if we see several shootings that took place in smoke shops Including a homicide that occurred just past Sunday This is an area of major concern for the mayor and the entire administration and we know that it is a major concern for New Yorkers The sheriff's office and the NYPD have been working hand-in-hand To crack down on these locations and do everything in our power to put them out of business So right now I like to turn it over to sheriff Miranda to give some overview of what his office has done thus far And what they're planning on doing sure Thank You deputy mayor For the first quarter of 2023 the total number of smoke shots inspected were 143 Compared to the first quarter 2022 in terms of smoke shop inspections only only 36 were conducted It means there's been an increase about 300 percent in smoke shop inspections currently being conducted Over 2023 year to date the number of smoke shots inspected conducted from January 2023 to April 23 There has been 162 They give you the numbers of what the resulted there have been a total of 46 arrests 73 criminal court summons is issued 249 notices of violations from the sheriff's office 126 notices of violations from DCWP The total amount of assessed civil penalties is two million six hundred thousand and The estimated value of items seized by the task force is over six million dollars The total number of smoke shop inspections conducted since the task force started in November have been 235 shops to date There have been a total of 55 arrests 148 criminal summonses 334 notices of violations from the sheriff's office 225 notices of violations from DCWP And the total value seat the total value estimated civil penalties is four million four hundred thousand and The estimated total value of item C since the beginning of the task force is close to 12 million dollars of merchandise And I'd just like to be able to say is that we can you know Side off stats and stats over and over again and it certainly does show an effort But the fact remains is that we do need help from the public And every time we ask for the plug for help we do get it So we're going to continue to ask one if you're purchasing cannabis It may be a little bit of an inconvenience But follow the law and purchase it from one of the four legal cannabis shops and they are more to come And to please pass that information along So as I mentioned earlier The smoke shops is not solely the fact that they're illegally selling cannabis What we're seeing now is that they are attracting criminals and forcing other illegal activities The robberies and other crimes are currently shops put people's lives in danger when those bullets fly It's not a magnet. They fly and anyone becomes at risk So chief show could you provide some more detail about what the NYPD's role is in these legal smoke shops enforcement and what you are seeing In relation to these locations? Sure. Just let me give you some just just some stats to start right now The increased in smoke shops are up to about roughly approximately 1,625 smoke shops In in this city a large amount as relates to The deputy commissioner mentioned robberies or smoke shops In 2022 we finished with 140 increase in robberies smoke shops This year we're already pushing 50 percent Of being of being robbed and what's concerning about this and the deputy may have mentioned this the average The average money amounts about $3,000 and what compounds that also does obviously marijuana in the store There's also paraphernalia in the store. So you can get three things one robbery. It's attractive Who's committing the robberies unfortunately? About 30 of the people who do arrest at age 15 to 19 Which is alarming itself when it pertains to the youth as far as what our role is here We assist the sheriff And looking at stores that come through our attention and they come through our attention as that we made by the public All right, we need the public to tell us what they know about stores What do you think is dealing illegal and narcotics out of stores and cannabis? We look at high volume of three and one calls throughout the city Uh, we're asking the schools to get involved in terms of if they have kids That are getting sick from illegal vapes to let us know They go to the priority priority list on top We look at what we have our people get sick. We flat what we call aided cards Who's getting sick from smoke shops and we prioritize not fashion What the police department can do? We have administrative powers that go into the store and write summons is Look around and only what a public can be The sheriff has broader powers than that, but we also have other strategies I'm not going to go too far into that we use in regards to underage sales of marijuana and narcotic sales Carly We had a hearing at the city council and we've kind of ramped up our nuisance abatement approach So currently there's over 60 stores that are up to be closed They're currently in a civil court judge right now and it's more than we had last year In terms of presence last year alone We had about 7,000 what we call directed patrols where patrol car will pull up Business store may walk the block. We have 7,000 last year. We're already at 6,000 this year And I'd be remiss in saying it from the crime prevention point of view We have to protect these counter restorers also. We have an obligation Last year we did an all out crime prevention last summer Just kind of letting them know what they can do to protect themselves buzzer system Don't leave you windows with with posters on it Be aware of who you're letting install late at night. So it was also a crime prevention Aspect to this but definitely by the numbers I gave you it's an issue for the city There's youth involved There's cannabis involved. There's illegal narcotics involved Some of the search ones we've conducted these locations for finding firearms So there's a lot there's a lot going on here, but the city the police department the sheriff and other agencies which we're trying to combat this Thank you So just you know to take one of the takeaways here the takeaways here are there listen here If you want to purchase cannabis, make sure you know what you're getting And you don't know what you're getting in these illegal spots. You go in there to purchase the cannabis Hey, there's a lot of cash It's a lot of stick up individuals who are coming in there to do that There's a safe alternative for you to be able to purchase cannabis if that's what you're looking to do And that's all this administration in the city is asking So, okay another practice move on to another topic another priority for the man the administration is to crack down on vehicles that have fake or missing license plates Also known as ghost cars These cars pose a serious public threat So let's think about this for a second. Why would a person put fake license plates or fake paper plates on their car? Why why would you do it? One they're trying to get away with Not paying their fair share of tolls Two they know that they're breaking the law of our roads and they're trying to avoid tickets for speeding or red light violations Three they don't have the proper registration or insurance to be operating a vehicle Or four they are trying to evade detection by law enforcement There is no legitimate aboveboard reason to remove a place or obscure your license plates none none that i'm aware of So it follows that we see a strong correlation between these ghost cars and crimes. They are committing in our city It is not a harmless crime. They have them there because they're doing other things So just like illegal smoke shop enforcement Cracking down on ghost cars is not a one person or one agency job There are a number of different agencies in the city who play a role in getting these dangerous Untraceable vehicles off of our street That includes the sheriff The mpd as well as the Department of Transportation The Department of Sanitation and many others there are rules that we have if we think the rules are unfair We have lost and we have hearings to determine We change the rules But then we have people who are just saying I am not going to abide by the rules and to put your strain on the ones that do So this is a major concern And I like to ask the sheriff now to give the folks at home an overview of what his office is doing to get some Of these cars off the road Thank you, Deputy Mayor the sheriff's department again works collectively with all of the agencies that were just mentioned We do joint operations and individual separate operations So in the first quarter of 2023 162 ghost vehicles were seized Compared to the first quarter of 2022 were only 101 ghost vehicles were seized and removed from the street The new york city's office saw new york city sheriff's office saw a 60 percent increase in ghost vehicle seizures In these seizures. We also recovered firearms narcotics and other illegal items inside the vehicles these includes temporary plate seizures and other vehicles that have protective covers or now they have Shades that go across them and they have all kind of devices that they now cover numbers or this or displace the license space as well You will see continual operations going forward. We also work with tvta at the The tunnel entrances in the bridges to do joint operations there Where we are also expecting cars that are being driven by individuals coming across trying to evade Evade the law here in new york city okay, um, so next up is a topic that uh I want the chief to talk about here. It is the legal use of atvs atvs and dirt bikes on our streets We hear this time and time again from the residents that these vehicles are being driven recklessly around the neighborhoods They're not being operated at all hours of the night and people like myself are sick of it They go against traffic They ride on the sidewalk and when I was the broker man there man had in chief It was the one quality of life issue that was actually the most challenging You try to pull them over they run you chase them you put innocent people potential lives dangerous total total just Disregard for the law and it's just it really comes down to it's a disregard for your neighbor It's basically saying we got rules out here and we're not going to follow it and we are not concerned about how anybody feels about it So chief you posted a vehicle a video on social media last week that shows hundreds of new community response team officers Who are they're fired up by understand and ready to hit the streets to crack down on these legal atvs and dirt bikes So can you just walk through the audience exactly what we're doing about that and what we're seeing? Sure, uh last year in the summer we created we created a community response team out of chief patrols of us About 12 cops We started bringing some cops in from around the city to help us out And we took over 10,000 atvs dirt bikes and illegal molepeds off the street. It was very successful So this year we made it official We just rolled out in the beginning of april every borough has a community response team They're a quality life team that focuses on quality life in this instance The number one two things we talk about here is atvs and ghost cars They consist of one one One lieutenant two sergeants and 16 officers Okay, and now we team up together as a city using our our our aviation units our Our communication networks to do it together as one city rollers into each other We span out on a hot day like today. It'll be out there today four o'clock city-wide And we're trying to stop these bikes from driving around the city One of the things that we really did have done a good job is now we included our highway units Our state troopers our tbta And we're focusing on the bridge crossings because like the deputy may said very difficult task to To stop these bikes because they don't they don't stop Last year alone in the fdr drive. I was run over by one of these atvs in the middle of the road They're very dangerous. So let me put this in perspective last night at about seven o'clock About 25 quads the three-wheel quads came off the brooklyn bridge right by one pp I don't know if they were trying to send us a message But they got back on the brooklyn bridge northbound on the fdr And a little did they know we were out there with highway and aviation and we we corralled everyone on the fdr We took all their bikes. That's just wrong message. That's what we're doing And the best part about last night no one got hurt No chases We boxed them in and the fdo was backed up in traffic And from what i'm told people came out of the cars and started clapping for us and said thank you That's tomorrow the story. So we're going to be all over this. We are all over this We will continue to be all over this and I expect a very successful campaign And sundays the last thing sundays We surged about 300 plus offices around the city highway state troopers all our equipment And it's been paying dividends for us so And let alone we haven't even addressed that the injuries that they face these individuals who are doing it Uh that they hurt themselves because they drive recklessly right we want to make sure that we're protecting them from themselves, right? So we we want these individuals get a motorcycle license purchase a motorcycle And operate your vehicle or there may be some off track locations that you can You know Practice your your your craft or your plan which you can't do it in the streets. It's unsafe for you It's unsafe for the residents they're laws that we have and we cannot Have a society or a city where we're just going to disregard the law. So please that's the takeaway there Reading back to the ghost cars and plates if you see if you walk into your regular day You see somebody with your car center text to 311 you can call 311 you can go on the website You can text center text that information we use this data to be able to direct the resources there Because you're paying for your toll. They're not paying for their toll They are riding through red lights. They're riding speeding because they have no just they have no regard We've seen the red light cameras and the speeding cameras. I personally don't like them But guess what happens the data shows that they are effective people are a lot because of Because of these red light cameras and he's speeding some of this but they're gonna say i'm not doing it I'm just going to just regard. So how is this city? We do this together or max if you see it Send us the text send us to 311. We utilize that data. We go out there and we look to to uh To mitigate that and of course what we speak about the cannabis shops one There's four there's going to be many more that's coming in Do not purchase your cannabis from a place that is selling it illegally you are putting your life in danger with the product And the fact of just being there Okay, last but certainly not least i'm very pleased to introduce the director of rodent mitigation kathleen karate Otherwise known as our very first rat. I love that term the rat zaw Uh public safety is not just about reducing crime and public safety is not just there's a robbery put a footpost there, right It's certainly not just the nypd who Everybody takes a role in public safety health as well at these briefings. We've had the department of sanitation We've had the chancellor. We've had the department Various different what you consider other than typical and you're going to see many people from the agencies including some of our Our partners from the community come up here and talk about public safety because it's not just the role Of one agency to do it a large part of that has been given to law enforcement in general typical law enforcement But this problem has to be solved with all of us together and the people at home Um, and the media has a role in it too. You know reporting these stories I just want to go back to what we talked about a long time ago about the lithium Batteries the fire commissioner says there's two takeaways Don't plug them overnight and don't have them in a place where it's every regress Fortunately recently we just lost two people from a fire lithium batteries It is going to happen and to think that it's not just well, I don't have one But yes, you may not have one, but you may live in a building that someone who has one Right, so these are areas together us as a team Our differences we're going to have we start talking about differences. How do we you know? How do we solve them together? And if we spread the word properly we can save lives and we can create what we call the man Crosses eco chamber of public safety and part of that is uh Being clean right and as the mayor says all the time he doesn't know anybody that likes rats Right, I did like the movie bend when it came out like 200 years ago, right? I think Michael Jackson made a song about it But no, I don't know anybody who likes rats public safety and public health go hand in hand And when it comes to the cleanness of our city rats a public enemy number one, right? That's certainly mayor Adams number one enemy So Kathy you have a very important job here to do we are all confident you can handle it Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your plan to send the rats packing? Thank you deputy mayor banks. You're absolutely right New Yorkers deserve clean rat-free streets They pose a public health problem destroy property and our symptoms of a dirty city I know that we as a city can improve our approach to trash and rodents and ultimately make a better quality of life for all new yorkers Rat mitigation is more than a quality of life issue Rats are the symptom of systemic issues including sanitation Health housing and economic justice. You can't just deal with one part of the problem and call it a day We need system-wide solutions strong leadership and an engaged population to join the efforts As new york city's first director of rodent mitigation I look forward to bringing a science and systems based approach to reducing new york city's rodent population So how do we get this done? By disturbing the places that rats call home cutting off their access to shelter By disrupting the rats food and water sources. They need to survive And by dispatching new and innovative extermination techniques We'll look at what works and scale it up to reach more neighborhoods and more communities And finally we'll ensure every new yorker is prepared with the knowledge and tools to take up the mantle in this collective effort My background is biology and urban sustainability But i'm a former elementary school teacher who knows behavior change And culture shifts do not happen overnight We need to get the message to all new yorkers. This is going to take all of us Start fighting rats starts with fighting litter garbage and food waste Rats love the same food we do which is why every anti rat initiative Starts with making sure food related garbage gets into bins that rats can't This means getting food scraps into dsmy brown composting bins and litter into waste baskets in parks and on streets And if you see unsanitary conditions Or a colony of rats call 3-1-1 and let us know where and when and we'll send folks to check on it Earlier this week. We announced 3.5 million investment to fight rats in harlem Bringing more staff and extermination techniques to our parks schools and NYCHA facilities We're also going to be partnering with city agencies And the local community to ensure our streets parks and playgrounds are the best they can be We've invested in cleaning across the city that will and will continue to do so because clean Welcoming rat-free streets are what every new yorker deserves So Kathleen what if you have one takeaway for Our public who's listening to this just the one thing that you want them to remember About what you want them to start doing today in this process. What would that one thing be? Thank you for that every new yorker needs to be prepared to manage their food waste and make sure Weights gets in the proper place whether that's brown composting bins litter baskets on your street corner Cleanliness reducing access to food is going to be our number one tool as a collective city to combat rats Okay Derek Thank you deputy mayor. We will now take a few on topic questions from the media related to today's presentations Fabian they don't listen to Fabian to you. They're gonna ask the question Hey, good afternoon. You spoke briefly about the three police involved shootings yesterday Typically, yes, whether it's warmer. We get full in the summer. We tend to see more gunplay I don't know if you are concerned that you know yesterday shootings were a function of that and just sort of looking ahead to summer How do you prepare for you know, what we typically see as an uptick So so I'll just give you just mind. I'm gonna have a chief show When I was in the NYPD, of course the course of summer, right more people come out, right more people come out It gets warmer or temperatures flare. So there's always plans to Look at what are we doing with the increase of people outside in violence? So you you'll see in the warm weather like violence tends to increase during the warm weather so Um One that's why like every good police officer. I don't know if they still practice that was around for 100 years They just pray for rain. They want to rain all the time. Let's people outside Let's trouble that they have but we don't always have rain. We don't want rain We want people to out to be on the street But we do have in this country And I'm not making a political statement here. There are more weapons out in the street There are more guns out in the street. We certainly have an increase in mental health So this is just a lot of different moving parts that take place here and we certainly want to make sure That um, we take a look at this if we check the statistics and I have not checked them I'm gonna be very clear about that The NYPD Is always in the lower end of the amount of time that they actually use their particular weapons in these particular situations and Consistently the mayor is looking at how do we make sure we get the proper training The police in a position to not use their firearms, but certainly Part of any type of law enforcement is to look at the changes that are occurring and it is a concern because um The successes are not having a plea not having a situation where police officers Has to use their weapon and when we get to that as a society Things are going to be uh things are going to get a lot a lot better Huh, that's no doubt. Yes. It was a tough day for us. We'll we'll start and Warm day I say about 80 over 80 degrees and that brings the warm weather brings obviously More violence uh historically so uh chief manager chief department ourself police commissioner We've identified 29 areas in the city that we are going to add extra resources To try to combat exactly what what you're asking. Last year we did 40 We might we might have stretched ourselves a little much So we we kind of brought it down to 29 and we're really going to focus on those areas If you look at our numbers now our overall violence I think uh over a year now even now is down above over 15 percent So, you know, and we and that same philosophy is in play right now We focus on areas We focus on the drives of violence and the people the small percentage of people that That that commit our violence with firearms. So we'll continue to focus on that And hopefully we'll continue this downward trend of violence with the warm of weather approaching The question doesn't mean to get an answer actually ask the question she deserves Public safety there's a gmp congressional hearing coming up this week. They argue that violence in major cities is On the rise you mentioned weapons out on the streets. I want to know what your response was to their Violence is on the rise and that they need to highlight this by having a congressional What when I didn't hear that what the rationale was for it. I don't read the papers a lot And uh, so I didn't hear it. So if you're saying is that here listen here Here's the bottom line if congress is coming here because they're looking to find a solution to a problem and it's not a Uh, that's a type of political sideshow then it's fine You know violence is an issue and it's it's violence is never acceptable when I was in the police department We saw the decrease in violence. I remember what the chief says I'm not here to talk about violence that did not occur one shooting is too much So I don't know what the purpose of that is that's a if it's a political side start will be part of it But if something positive comes out that we can avoid one Shooting and one incidence Hey, I'll I'll I'll listen to be part of anything that can reduce violence those bullets fly out They don't come back. They are not magnets. So I don't know that's a question that you would have to ask Ask the commissioner about it Just my relationship with her in spite of what's written over the time Speak to her 200 times a day a little bit too much She goes i'm tired of talking to you on says vice versa or the time we speak all the time That's a question for her But knowing her anything that you know her objective is the same how do we keep the city safe? So but I'm not speaking for her in that particular category There's something that's concrete and not looking to be a side show what's happened In my opinion a little bit too much in politics whether there's a local You know or national It's fine Some of us actually really want to get to the bottom line rather than the the political side So and if it's if it's done in the right spirit, I'm certainly for it and uh and commission can answer that question for herself Thank you for the question Anna So the announcement of the Harlem road mitigation zone the 3.5 million dollars we announced earlier this week Is in addition to the three existing road mitigation zones chinatown lower east side being one of those The strategy there is the same strategy. We're deploying which is limiting food access shelter And water access With the road mitigation zones our partners at the department of health and mental hygiene conduct more frequent inspections of properties and then that brings more attention to those areas to make sure Issues are being addressed I'm gonna let chief answer that but what happens is that it's it's difficult to talk about a shooting That's still under investigation Because then your comments can be construed as something differently So i'm not going to make any comment about a shooting that's under investigation And but we do have to be able to say well when you wrap up the investigation to speak about it, right? So it won't be used as a cover. I certainly understand that It's an unfortunate situation When a police officer has to fight his or her weapon And one thing that I would say if you speak to some of these police officers that fire their weapons, they're destroyed I mean people think they're going home and having a party They're destroyed and that destroyed lucid throne for a long long period of time Certainly that individual being the chief was that was out there at the scene yesterday on that I mean we have a 70 year old person Who is uh is no longer living so i'm not going to make any comments the investigation is pending It's an unfortunate situation that that is taking place and the uh the outreach that is taking place to Explain preliminary what happened and then when investigation is done be able to just present The facts and exactly what exactly happened here and then what can we do to avoid that in the future? But chief i'm going to let you touch so i'm going to put this in human terms I spoke to the officers last night they were very upset and they were a little rattled That they were put in that kind of situation a life and death situation In a three foot space That had to make that decision And uh, they were very concerned and they were sad and they're human beings And but they they uh That's a job they took Everything that we've everything we spoke about the press conference is clearly on body one camera Thank you earlier this week the administration reached out to new yorkers asking them to submit questions for the officials that have joined us here today We will now get to as many of those questions as we can with the amount of time that we have left Our first question comes from jose in queens for the nypd and asks Does the nypd work with the new york state troopers on ghost car enforcement? Absolutely, we work but we now we do work with uh state troopers. We work with my partner sheriff They help us. They help us out on the road. They help us try to recover these cars They help us at the bridge crossings. They're they're an integral part of our joint plan as it relates to ghost cars ATVs and illegal bikes Thank you Next question comes for the rats are from Daniel and queens says while we want to eliminate rats. What are some humane methods we are using for rat mitigation Part of our approach is Examining and experimenting with all different road mitigation techniques Our goal is to test them see what's efficient see what's scalable and then take that citywide Our next question comes from anonymous in brooklyn For our rats are The owner of my building does not care about maintenance and we have a mole and rat infestation. What should I do? I think we've made it very clear. It's going to take all new yorkers in this effort So everyone has a park to play and taking away rodents access to food water and shelter If there's ongoing issues encourage you to report them to 311 Like the deputy mayor said through and once away for us to collect data and then target resources to those specific areas Thank you Next question comes from wendy and queens for the sheriff If these cannabis shops are illegal, why can't we shut them down for good? Again, we use all the resources available to the city But even the illegal shops have a right to do process They have to have their date in in court as they say to be able to defend themselves and make a plea And that process sometimes takes a little bit longer Um, but they do need to do process. So that's why they don't close down from one day to the next We have to file the proper paperwork and takes the the law department and legal department of each of our agencies I think collectively to make the proper presentation and then it goes through through process And that and I just want to talk to that You know This a lot of investigative reporting that's done It might be a great story to look at the process to close up these smokes out because If and I always adopted this if my child gets hit with a bullet Then i'm going to be the biggest activist in the world But we can't we can't do it beforehand These smoke shops people are dying Just because the process the laws need to be changed and a lot of things need to take place So that is something that we need to really put that attention on And if you have to wait for your child to die you to get shot before you take action then Then so be it. I am not judging you or i'm changed that this is something that together as a city that we can work on And these are some of the problems that we can actually together If that's something we want to do make a difference on that's a very good question Because the process is much too long And there are things that we could do to be able to Change that situation Lorraine from queens asks for the chief Does the department track motorcycles that purposefully angle their rear plate to avoid tolls or identification? We we definitely focus on motorcycles I have that we've all seen that plate covers have bent up so not to identify their registration As it relates to motorcycles in general that they're extremely difficult to pull over if they don't want But I will say this year we've taken about 860 plus of those motorcycles off off the streets So we do we definitely do focus on it and it's part of our overall illegal bike motorcycle plan Thank you This question is for director karate from jones and queens who asks What can we do to keep large rats from the garden and bird feeder? I laid down rocks planted mint, but they dug a hole and made their way back in Food is the number one attractive Quality for rats. Uh, so something like a bird feeder is rat fodder Removing access to food will be the number one thing new yorkers can do for their gardens And their blocks to make sure rats are not their neighbors Next question is for the chief Um from suit jot in queens asks can the nypd use drones for a faster service to issue tickets for blocked driveways Or breaking sanitation rules? wow, uh I believe that's uh, that's not a lot not not a lot to be used, but uh, Definitely take a look at it. I don't think so. There are some laws that impact the use Of drones in the city and we are actively looking at ways in which we could In the future utilize them for that in other areas as well But as of now, there are some federal limitations that make the use of drones in new york city Just a barrier We'll see about that in the future Our last question comes from laura and brooklyn for director karate Will you also focus on getting rid of raccoons in our community? They're almost as bad as rats All of our urban pests Are looking for the same things food water and shelter So i'll say it once and say it again taking away food sources is going to be Vital for rodent control and raccoon control Thank you on behalf of the adams administration. I would like to thank everyone for tuning in to today's briefing We look forward to seeing you at our next one. Have a great day