 Well, welcome to the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge. I always say that in its original inception as the Tribal Bridge, this is Ground Zero of City-State Cooperation and Collaboration, so we're thrilled to have the Mayor and the Governor and the Commissioner and the Sheriff and the Chief of Department here with us today. I'm Janet Lieber, I'm the MTA Chair and CEO. I just want to acknowledge that what we have here are incredible partners, Governor, Mayor, partners, not just on this initiative that we're celebrating today, but every day. Governor, again and again you have stepped up for MTA riders, the budget deficit, increasing service and most of all, your prioritization of subway safety at every stage. Mayor Adams, I need to acknowledge your personal commitment to transit safety. You are from that world. You are a transit cop and you've made it a priority to focus on transit safety and you've put incredible leadership in the person of Commissioner Caban and Transit Chief Kemper. I know how passionate you are about this issue, but today is about the incredible work underway to push back on toll dodging drivers and the entire problem of fake and illegal plates, which are a threat to public safety in so many different ways, not just that they're ripping off New Yorkers who play by the rules. So first I want to, we all want to hear from Mayor Adams. Mayor. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, General, and I just want to just reiterate how much this governor has played in the entire apparatus of public safety. Time and time again, I'm from day one with our subway safety plan, and when we talk about transportation, we don't adjust in what happens below ground, but what takes place over our bridges and Commissioner Caban and I, we often talk about whenever we need assistance in this area, Governor, you have stepped up, you have stepped up. And I know there's just so much you're trying to pull us apart. It's just not going to happen. This is a partner. She's in charge of the state, and she has made public safety a part of her overall agenda and her creativity, thinking outside the box, coming up with new methods, and being proactive. This was a proactive approach that the Commissioner and his team and the men and women behind us, those men and women who wear the uniforms as state troopers or New York City Police Department, Tribal Bridge and Tunnel, and I just want to do a real special shout out to Commissioner Daughtry, who's here, Kaz Daughtry, grew up in the police department, Chief Madri mentored him as a child, and you just don't realize what this young man has done with the use of technology, new methodologies, new ways of policing, and just managing the city, just job done, well, Commissioner Daughtry, and we want to continue to watch you do the great things that you're doing and making sure that this city is safe and being proactive and approach. Thank you, General. You, the MTA CEO, you live and breathe this stuff. You are talking about passengers every day and how we make sure our bridge, our roads, how we are safe for New Yorkers and communities, and all the men and women who are participating in this initiative. It's something we have focused on over and over again. Ghost vehicles, ghost cars, ghost dirt bikes, they are not only menace to our roadways. We are finding that they are participating in very violent and dangerous crimes. They leave the seams of criminality. You don't know who they are. They disappear in the night. We're finding that in some of the most dangerous criminals in the city, they have various sets of plates in their vehicle, and they are changing them throughout the night. So this initiative is a proactive way of catching them before they do something dangerous. Two years ago, I say over and over again, our mission was clear, driven to make our city continue to be the safest big city in America, build our economy, and make this a livable city. Mission is more disheartening to taxpayer New Yorkers who follow the rules, is to stand by and watch those who break the rule and think they're going to do it openly. In public safety, as I say over and over again, is the prerequisite to our prosperity. Yesterday, the NYPD conducted this massive multi-agency enforcement operation here on the streets of New York City, here on this bridge. And when you look at the combined effort, the coordination of what we are doing together with the sheriff's department, the police department, state troopers, and all those who are involved, this is how you combat the ongoing issue of ghost cars and fraudulent deface or non-existence license plates. And it doesn't matter the vehicle. You saw yellow cabs there, Range Rovers there. You saw old and new vehicles there. You saw high-end luxury vehicles there. There's a body of people who have made up their minds that they think that they can escape the law and it's not going to happen. As well as they want to evade accountability for serious actions that they use in these ghost vehicles, such as shootings, robberies, and hidden runs, hidden runs. Imagine your loved one being hit by a vehicle and you can't identify who they are. This drives up our insurance costs. This traumatizes family. There's a combined effort of really alleviating what family members go through when these actions take place. Well, today, we're saying we're putting the brakes on ghost plates with the help of this multi-agency city-state task force, and we show New York City what it means to really lean into this and that we mean business. I want to thank MTA, the Sheriff's Office, TBTA, PAPD, and the DMV in the role that they are playing. We've issued 282 summons, made eight arrests, impounded 73 vehicles, and sent an important message to everyone who drives our streets or our city. No one is above the law. If you drive with an illegal or defaced license plate, you will face the outcome. These are some of the plates that you see. This has become a market business, Florida, Georgia, and I don't even know which state this is. But this is the business that we're seeing that's propping up on social media and the Internet on what you can do and how you go about carrying this out over and over again. And they're selling them online that they think they could keep these on our streets and we're saying no to that and our enforcement is proving that. Because New Yorkers are fed up, they're tired of watching someone carry out a hit and run. They're tired of someone getting into an accident just to find out they do not have the basic paper wrote. And our action is real. We've issued 13,360 moving violations. We have made 5,835 MPounds for fraudulent license plates in the city and seized 6,716 vehicles. All of these numbers are in all time high. Our law enforcement agencies are working their series about this in 2024 in the month of March. We're stating that we're going to continue to make sure we send a clear and loud message. And last month crime stats show that every time we take one of these illegal vehicles off the road, we're taking off a potential person who's going to commit a serious felony or violent act. But overall crime in this city is continuing to fall by 1.1 percent in car theft, which was really an aggravating issue for us in 2023. And we sat down, the commissioner came back to bed and his team chief Madri sat down and stated we must come up with a real plan and a real operation to lean into car theft. Much of it was being fed by social media. We're doing just that. Although it skyrocketed across the country, it was down by 13 percent last month after seeing drops in both December and January. The car theft task force we announced past fall has delivered great results by deploying more offices and embracing new technology. Some of that technology we introduced and showed and displayed. It has begun to show the real result we're looking for. And every precinct is dedicated a patrol car that they are focusing 24-7 on the grand loss in the auto problem that we were facing. We're going to enhance training. We're going to work with the DMV to be proactive. The DMV is sending out notifications to those cars that on our target list, KIA, those are our target areas, direct correlation to what we're seeing on social media with young people. So thanks to this effort, we have seen 203 fewer vehicles stolen in the city during the opening months in 2024 compared to 2023. We're towing ghost cars, getting them off our street. No longer driving by them and ignoring them. And we're making big gains in recovering stolen vehicles across the five borough, especially in the Bronx. It became a hotbed in the ground zero for the problem that we were facing. These cars may not have real license plates, but we have their number because they have created real problems in our city. And I'm really proud of the initiative that we carried out today, and I can't say enough about the help from the governor and the other agencies that are involved. When we work together, we can get it done, and that is what we did yesterday when we got it done. Thank you very much. Thank you, Janet. Thank you, Mayor. First of all, thank you for your comments to reinforce the depth and the strength of our relationship. We said at the very outset that the era of the governor of the state of New York and the mayor of the city of New York fighting is officially over. Instead, we're teaming up to fight crime, and the results are so evident, particularly as a result of this initiative, which was just launched yesterday. We've been partners in so many areas of public safety, whether it's the subways, whether it's the stolen vehicles, whether it's getting illegal guns off the streets. And I'm so proud of that work, Mayor, and we're making a real difference. So thank you. Thank you for your passion and your dedication for this great city and making it as safe as we possibly can. You know, I talk about keeping people safe. This morning I was in Albany, and we talked about organized retail theft rates, something I know the mayor is very focused on as well, but we're seeing it all over the state of New York. And the same approach works. We did this with legal guns. You bring together state, local, federal teams together. They share intelligence. They have crime analysis centers where they're no longer in silos, but they're actually partners. So we worked on the guns, more guns off the streets, safer cities. We worked on the retail theft this morning. Talk about how we'll bring together that same force together, sharing information, getting the money for resources for our district attorneys, more money for law enforcement. That's how you get at the root of a crime. You try to solve the problem with a targeted approach, and that's what today is all about. What is the days we're going to tolerate? People going through here with just an attitude that I'll take my chances because I'll never get caught, right? Those days are gone because you will get caught. We have the technology. We have everything we need in place to go after these ghost cars, ghost vehicles. In fact, today the ghostbusters have arrived, right mayor? All right, you see what the ghostbusters can do. We're going after the ghost vehicles because we're sick and tired of people taking advantage, and everybody else feels like a sucker because they're the ones paying the tolls like law-abiding citizens. Well, they're the ones who are going to get the last laugh when people lose their vehicles, lose their ability to get around, and are prosecuted because they are so flagrantly violating the laws of our state and our city. So the gigs up, as the mayor mentioned, many of these vehicles are involved in other crimes. We talked about retail theft, so many stolen vehicles are the opportunity for people to steal the goods and then to take them out and sell them online or to other places. So we're going to break up these rings. And it starts right here on this bridge, and I could not be happy, and so proud of the work we're doing. General Lieber, we talk all the time about how we can keep people safe on our city, our roads, our bridges, our subway, working hand-in-hand with the NYPD, they are extraordinary individuals. The MTA police, I thank them. The state police who joined us here as well. My partners who are all over the state of New York solving crimes. The New York City Sheriff's Office, the MTA Bridge and Tunnel Officers, the DMV, I used to run DMVs upstate, so I know all about what they can do. In fact, the mayor referenced this whole Tic-Tac challenge. Talk about bold. On Tic-Tac, young people were challenged to go out and steal Hyundai's and Kia's. Now who drives a 10-year-old Hyundai or Kia? These are not the wealthiest people among us. They don't have a Lexus in the garage in case their Kia gets stolen. This is how people get to their low-wage jobs. So to me, to see that there was a spike in theft, because young people were challenged, we saw this first upstate, Mayor. Buffalo and Rochester had the highest rate of car theft in the nation last summer. We intervened late August. We brought together the teams that we're talking about right here today how we do this. I'm proud to report that thefts of vehicles are down 55 percent in the city of Rochester, down 45 percent in the city of Buffalo because of this effort. Again, DMV are learning people, telling people they have to go back to their dealers and get their safety protections to make sure they aren't stolen. We had one young person brag about stealing 400 vehicles and he was a folk hero. Okay? That's what we're talking about, brazen criminals. So today is a new era. We're going to catch the bad actors, stop them and deter the use of these bogus and covered plates, enhanced penalties, and make sure that people who think they're invincible today will be stopped tomorrow and mark our words. We have the team, the resources, and the commitment to get this done. Thank you very much. With that, I'd like to introduce please Commissioner Edward Caban. Thank you, Governor Hockel, Mayor Adams. And good afternoon, everyone. The multi-agency task force we're announcing today has a clear and well-defined purpose. Locate illegal and unregistered vehicles traveling in and around our city, get them off our streets, and hold the people, driving them accountable. Over the past two years, this type of enforcement has been a priority for the NYPD. And that's a very good reason. That's not just about the Ford and the DMV, although it certainly plays a role here. But what our department is concerned about, and what the other agencies who've joined us on this task force are concerned with, is the clear connection between these illegal vehicles and violence. Having fake or obscured license plates is not new. But recently, we're seeing the same photocopied fake plate used on different vehicles fleeing the scenes of separate crimes. We see these vehicles speeding through school zones and going through red lights. We see them colliding with other cars or hitting cyclists and pedestrians and just driving away. We see them parked illegally, blocking fire hydrants, handicapped accessible ramps and driveways. And the reason for this is simple. A vehicle with a fake or obscured plate is essentially a ghost car, untraceable back to any registered owner or operator. And for all the scenarios I just laid out, this is a public safety threat that we must address head on. We started to see a specific spike in this offense during the pandemic, when DMVs across the nation were forced to close and the expiration date on temporary plates were extended again and again. Criminals saw this as an opportunity and they started to print these fake plates all to the real ones. Then they would either put them on their own cars or sell them. This added to the longstanding issues of drivers evading tolls and traffic cameras with obscured plates. But now, instead of getting out of tickets, these fake plates are used to get away from violent crimes. And we're here today, like everyone said, along with our partners, the MTA, the New York City Sheriff's Office, the New York State Police, the Poor Authority Police Department, the New York State DMV and others, to send a very clear message. This stops now. The task force we assembled is a talented, diverse team that is dedicated to keeping our roadways and the neighborhoods they run through safe. Once a month, we will deploy resources to different locations across the city, including our bridges and tunnels, and using license plate reader technology and our officers' own observations, we will screen for unregistered vehicles and fake plates. When we see these illegal vehicles, including scooters and motors, by the way, they will be pulled over. And when necessary, the drivers will be arrested and the vehicles impounded. Through these stops, we will also recover stolen vehicles, take unregistered and uninsured drivers off the streets, and bring wanted persons to justice. It's a cascade effect that results in safer communities across the five borough. That's what the people of our city deserve, and that's what we're going to deliver. And as the mayor said, yesterday was the first enforcement action by the task force, and the numbers speak for themselves. Going forward, we expect even more because we will not tolerate lawlessness in our city streets. It's all part of our intelligence-driven approach to precision policing. It's another example of how interagency cooperation makes our city better and makes us all safer. And as always, I'm proud to stand with our dedicated partners as we make a simple promise to New Yorkers, there will be consequences for illegal behavior. And together, we will never stop fighting for the people we serve. Thank you all again for being here this afternoon. Stay safe and God bless. Incredible, incredible partnership and incredible leadership at the state level, the city level, and the various agencies that you are hearing from. We are not going to let what's going on stand. And the MTA has been pushing forward on this issue of pole evasion intensely under Governor Hockel's leadership for quite some time. We've ramped up enforcement. We've actually doubled, more than doubled, interdictions. That's the impoundment of all those vehicles you see over there in the lot since 2019. And we're growing collections by 67 million at 67 percent in just a couple years. Just yesterday, on top of the amazing enforcement action that was initiated by the city and the other state partners, we seized 11 cars. We've been doing this all the time that had combined $100,000 of outstanding tolls and other issues that were caused them to be impounded and there were arrests made as well. We're using every tool at our disposal, especially to deal with this issue of covered plates and fraudulent plates, which is a growing concern. And someone out there was arrested for a fake plate just yesterday. So please take this as a warning, folks. I think you've heard it from the governor. You've heard it from the mayor. You've heard it from the police commissioner. And a little little MTA is going to add our voice. If you have anything affixed to your plate, just take it off because you're going to be stopped by one of these agencies. And we've got officers all over the region. And your vehicle is going to be impounded and other consequences. This is about fairness. It's not fair at all when drivers, sometimes rolling around in these, as the mayor said, these high-end cars, Bugatti's and Porsches in some cases come across the bridges and tunnels and skip out on paying thousands in tolls. And as has been made very clear today, created incredible crime problems with these goats plates. That's your money they're taking. That's the public's money. It's going to be used to improve transportation across the region. We need to reinvest that and we can't allow any further behavior of this kind, of the governor's leadership. There's actually initiative in the state legislature this year to significantly up the penalties so we can do more enforcement. And I thank you governor for your leadership in so many ways. With that, let me turn it over to the New York City Sheriff Anthony Miranda. And I just want to stop by saying it has been the mandate of the mayor to have cooperation across all city agencies. And he sort of says a city problem, not a person, not one agency problem. So the approach by the state and our partners and the city, and of course the city of New York is important. Paper plates are clearly a danger to our communities. These illegal actions that are going on clearly present a hazard to all the communities that we're talking to. We care about this. I want to make this message clear. Anybody driving around with these paper plates, people believe that they can drive the vehicle around with paper plates. The vehicle paper plates are merely a transportation plate. It's for you to take the vehicle from point A to point B. Park the vehicle and then it gives you 30 days to register the car. It does not allow you to drive around the car in the city of New York unregistered and uninsured. We will be seizing those vehicles. We have been doing these operations locally for quite some time. Now we're joining a larger operation both on the state and city level. I think the city people are going to see that the message is being received. This is no longer an acceptable act. There's no excuse for doing the things that you're doing right now. And the fact that many of these vehicles have been used to enhance criminal activity, the other people need to make sure that you cannot be mixed up with the criminals who are taking advantage of the same process. These are illegal. They present the danger. Again, you are not allowed to drive a vehicle around with a paper plate in any condition. Be clear about it. You're allowed to buy a vehicle, transport the vehicle, park it, and then it gives you 30 days to register the vehicle. So if you're driving around these things, then you can go from borough to borough over street to street. Be advised that we are going to be seizing this vehicle. And it's a pleasure to be a part of a larger effort and a joint task force to be able to address this serious concern to the city. Thank you. Hi. Hi, over here, Mayor. Hi. Approximately how many officers are going to be in this task force across all the agencies? And also, if someone could just describe in a little more detail what you're seeing on these plates, what people are doing to them, to doctor them. Okay, good afternoon. I have our Chief of Transportation. Phil is going to answer that question for us. Good afternoon. So yesterday comprised about 150 members across the five different agencies that participated in this operation. And I'm sorry, the second part of the question. So different methods. Some people are fixing pieces of tape to obscure one of the letters or to alter it. So if you have like a P, they're putting a piece of tape that makes it look like a B or a six to change it into an eight. That slight alteration will give us a false read. People are using heat guns and spray paints to affect the appearance of the license plate so that it gives back a reflection and makes it tougher to read. But we're on to them and we see some of those plates yesterday. Chief Phillip Rivera, Chief of Transportation for the NYPD. Hi, this is Sonia Rincon from Channel 7. So if you go on 311 and you can report a covered or paper plate, you can do that. But as a parking violation, and we know this is not just a parking violation in those vehicles, are more likely to be spotted on the road than parked. So if the public can help report these covered paper plates to multiple agencies at once, the question about the ghostbusters, as the governor called it, is who are you going to call? Well, certainly when those calls do come into 311, we do respond and we do issue summonses. And we actually do tow them when we can, when we do have tow trucks available. So we actually have 399 tows this year versus 212 the previous year. We are able to tow a lot more this year. We just got some new tow trucks into the fleet. And we're also experimenting with another program called Barnacle that we're going to use to immobilize these vehicles so that we can tow them at a later date. We also have a pilot project that we initiated in the 4-6-104 and the 109 precincts where those calls are being directly routed to Traffic Enforcement Division, which increases our response time. It takes the officers away from a low priority job and gets the Traffic Enforcement officers out there. While those vehicles are mobile, unfortunately because it is a moving situation, a little more difficult to get after. We still encourage the community to report those calls. And we have with the ability of our vast city-wide resources, state resources, and the implementation of city-wide 4, we can put that vehicle over the radio and we can successfully make an apprehension. But we do need the community to let us know where these vehicles are. So you mentioned this is a multi-agency initiative. Can you talk a little bit about what the Port Authority is doing in this operation? So the Port Authority has been doing, I'm sorry, the Port Authority is here. Hi, so the Port Authority has been engaged in ongoing tow evasion efforts for several years now. As part of this effort, yesterday we had about 20 officers out. We issued 142 summonses, 30 vehicles were either confiscated or their license plates were taken, and we arrested three people. Included in those numbers were a commercial business that owed us over 130,000 dollars and also owes between us the MTA and the Thruway Authority an excess of 400,000 dollars. Sure. My name is Robin Bramwell-Stewart and I am Deputy Director of Tunnels, Bridges and Terminals at the Port Authority. Thank you. Appreciate it. Can you all just talk a bit more about the logistics of this whole operation? I mean, there are plate readers even right behind you, they're on vehicles. How physically do you pursue the scoff laws in this case? And then also just talk about you've been doing this action for years. What's different now having you all together combined? Well, you just said it, having us all together combined. And the plate readers are being used for more than just scoff laws. You know, what these plate readers have allowed, has allowed us to do. They have allowed us to go after very violent people. The police department is really coordinating with the plate readers to execute apprehension plan, apprehension strategies. People have been using our bridges as escape routes, particularly going to and from New Jersey and going to and from the various boroughs. And so what you're seeing right now, yes, we have been silently in our silos executing these operations, but coming together to execute them together is going to send the message we want and part of what you're going to do today. Many people were not aware of that. We're really leaning into these illegal place when they pick up the papers, when they turn on the news and they find out that the jig is up. And as the governor has really clear, the ghostbusters are here. And that's who is going to finalize our resolving this problem. It's the coordination, really coordination and from time to time doing these operations. That's very important. Yeah, go ahead. Who's there? Yeah, go ahead, Dan. Yes, I pulled the numbers and in 2019, the NYPD was pushing about almost a million moving violations in 2019. Last year, NYPD didn't even get to 700,000. With that drop off and the amount of moving violations the NYPD are issuing, is that why you're seeing a proliferation of defaced place and ghost cars and the like? No, also last year was one of the safest years for pedestrians, one of the safest years for pedestrians in the history. And what you're seeing, because of the action we did the previous year, speed camera operation that we were able to get passed around schools to extend that. And our other initiative, we have some more surprises that we're going to do. You're seeing some people are learning their lessons. But we are going to continue the enforcement that we're talking about, of ensuring we go after these paper plates. So with the safest year for pedestrian and probably the history of the city shows that these guys are doing the job that they want. And I know you always ask in a Safe Streets question, and since you have that New York Mets hat on, and I'm a Mets fan, I got to get your questioning. The areas that people who observe covered in fake plates often see that it's among law enforcement is a big segment of the people who cover, deface or obscure their plates. So what's this task force going to do about law enforcement officials? Yeah, and I don't think, like you said, that's one of the areas. I don't think that's the largest area. No one is above the law. And what we're going to do through the commissioner's office, it is responsibility of our integrity control officers. Every precinct, as in what's called an ICO, an integrity control officer, we're going to let them know it is your responsibility and an obligation to police your precinct, to inspect the cars, to make sure those cars at a park by police precincts are not carrying out the actions that we're fighting. So our law enforcement community should not be in contrast to what we want to carry out. And on top of those integrity control officer, the police commissioner has his own inspection team. So we're going to inspect what we expect so it won't be suspect.