 Hi everybody, to the members of the media who are joining, we're asking that you please change your name so that your allot is also reflected. We will now open it up to Deputy Mayor Phil Banks and then we will take some questions at the end. Thank you. Good afternoon. This is the first of a series of regular briefings we will hold to inform the public of the status of public safety in New York City. Prior to the mayor taking office, he stated repeatedly, publicly and privately, that public safety is the prerequisite to prosperity. The city has to get public safety right. People need to be safe and just as importantly, they need to feel safe. One of the most important steps toward that goal is to having the entire public safety team working together, one city, one mission. This is why we have our entire public safety apparatus here today. We like to call it the public safety ecosystem. Just like an ecosystem in nature, the system does not thrive unless each of its components are doing its part. I wanna thank each of the agencies represented here today for doing their part and working together. This is a true team effort and I would like to introduce the team right now. First, everyone knows, Police Commissioner Keshon Sewell, the Police Commissioner for the NYPD. FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanaugh. Sheriff Anthony Miranda. Department of Correction Commissioner Lou Molina. The New York City Office of Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iskell. We have Deanna Logan, who's the Director of the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice. Wayne McKenzie, the General Counsel for the Department of Probation. Administration for Children's Services Deputy Commissioner for Administration, Lisa Hines Johnson. Department of Citywide Administrative Services, Deputy Commissioner Shamika Boyer-Overton. Department of Environmental Protection, Deputy Commissioner of Police and Security, John Consgrove. Deputy of Health and Mental Hygiene Assistant Commissioner, John Beatty. Department of Social Services, Chief Operating Officer Matthew Brune. Department of Parks and Recreation Enforcement, Patrol Inspector Edwin Falcon. Department of Sanitation, Police Chief of Enforcement Ed Thompson. And Taxi and Limousine Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner for Uniform Services Bureau, Ira Goldapper. Each week, there'll be variations of this team you see here today, but make no mistake, the team is working together. One of the matches we use when working together is the answer is yes. Now, what's the question? Because in this administration, we get stuff done. That is the mindset we have to have to help keep you safe and feeling safe. But the six man is you, the community, the citizens, the stakeholders, however we wanna label them, you are the important piece here. In my entire professional career, I have never met a successful law and person-person who did not rely on the community to help him or her get their job done. We need you to be part of that team. We will not be as successful as we can unless the team here today is working together and if all of you work together with us. To that end, the mayor announced at the beginning of the year a new way to keep in touch with us. And I encourage everyone to sign up for those alerts by visiting nyc.gov and clicking on the office of the mayor. Anyone who was previously signed up to receive emails from the mayor received a link yesterday where they could submit questions for the team here. And we will address some of those questions at the end of the briefing. If you have not signed up yet, I encourage you to visit nyc.gov so that you can stay informed and help us keep the city safe. Now, as I mentioned, today's briefing is the first in a series of regular updates on the state of public safety and our city. In each episode, we'll feature one or more of these agencies to give the folks at home an inside look at the work that's being done. I like the word episode, right? This is the first. Today, we're going to hear from Police Commissioner Sewell with a one-year update on the Mayor's subway safety plan. You will also hear from Commissioner Kavanaugh to talk about the increasing threat posed by lithium-ion battery fires. Sheriff Miranda will join Commissioner Kavanaugh in providing details about an enforcement operation that took place yesterday around these batteries and will then provide an update on the ongoing efforts to crack down on smoke shops that are legally selling marijuana. And last but not least, Commissioner Molina to give an overview of the Department of Correction's multi-pronged plan to stop the flow of illegal drugs and our jails. So without further ado, let's jump right into this. February 18th, 2022, the Mayor released a comprehensive plan to address safety concerns in our subways. The administration have worked hand-in-hand with the MTA to implement this plan, and I personally like to thank General Lee by the head of the MTA because he has worked with us hand-in-hand and he has been a fantastic partner. But the progress is also a testament to the riders. You see, we've all heard this phrase if you see something say something, but it's not an empty phrase. It's actually a call to action. It cannot be done without your contribution. We want to thank all the members of the public who have answered that call and helped make our city system safer. This is a complex issue with many components to it, including an increase in enforcement efforts as well as mental health resources. And I wanted to stop a minute to really talk about the need for you, the community, the stakeholders, however you want to label yourselves to get involved. When I spoke to the MTA today and every week when I speak to General Lee, but we go over the results of the surveys that the riders fill out. And those riders who are saying the stuff that they like, the stuff that they don't like, the stuff that they're seeing, the stuff that they don't see, and that gets channeled into our agencies and adjustments are being made. And I like to say you're gonna get the good as long as it's with the bad. And we have our input coming from the MTA is that the surveys are showing a very clear progress. The riders like what they see. Are we there yet? No. But are we going towards that particular goal? Absolutely yes. And Commissioner Soho deserves the majority of the credit she's going to explain to you. Since February, New York City has connected more than 3,000 people, experiences homelessness on our subways to wrap around services. This includes mental health professionals and counselors who were able to assist with getting people off the subway system and get them the care that they actually need. On October 25th, the mayor and the governor announced a surge of 1,200 additional police officers tasked with patrolling subway platforms and trains each day. After the second phase of the subway safety plan that has been going into effect, New York City saw the lowest non-week period for transit crime since 2009. It's clear that people are feeling safe as well. Ridership has been consistently on the rise and riders since December 8th, we have been at the shy of four million riders that represents a lot of progress. I'd like to now turn it over to Commissioner Soho to give a brief update on the results of those efforts this past year. Thank you very much. So I think all of us remember last year standing on a subway platform in the train stations as we announced with the mayor, different initiatives and most importantly, the subway safety plan. There was a mandate that we surge more officers into the transit system and do it collectively with our partners, mental health, homelessness, and we did so. Those efforts have yielded tremendous results. We are cognizant of the fact that there are still some challenges in the subway system but we face them every single day. We surged about 1,000 officers into the subway system to combat the issues we were seeing in the subway system. We had officers that were assigned to other bureaus, assist us in those efforts as well. We collaborated with the MTA. We had conductors doing announcements to let people know that a police officer was on the train. We increased the officers that were riding the trains as well. We wanted people to know when they were pulling into a station where there was a transit district. So if they had anything to report, that someone would be there to assist them. We actually asked our executives to take tours in the transit system as well. We put a significant amount of resources into the transit system to combat the issues we were seeing. In addition to, like the deputy mayor said, people being safe, they have to feel safe too and that's important to us. As it stands now, ridership is increasing by the day. Crime in the transit system is about 8% less than it was compared to pre-pandemic levels in 2019 and year to date, transit crime is down 18%, a little over 18% actually. But again, what does that mean if people don't feel safe? So continuing to have increased visibility in the subway system is important. Continuing to have the engagement with our commuters is important as well. People go to work, they take the same train, they go to the same station every day. You should see the same officer whenever possible because these are the routines that we have. These are the connections that we want to have with the people that we serve. Going forward, you're going to see that continue. You're going to see more initiatives put in place. Our TAB summons are up, our TAB ferry evasion summons is up as well and we're going to continue to make sure that we engage with the commuters. But if I may, there is something I'd like to talk about. It's been very timely, you see it in the news lately and that's subway surfing. We have a number of youth who are engaging in riding the outside of subway cars. It is extremely dangerous. We recognize that social media plays a part in it. Some of these things are live streamed when they're doing it. We had one young man, unfortunately, lose his life engaging in this dangerous event and we had someone else lose a limb. I cannot overstate how dangerous that is and we're asking our parents, guardians, school officials, anyone who can get this message out and we're going to be asking social media to play a part as well to be able to curb these activities. And Deputy Mayor Banks, anything else? Thank you. So next up, we're joined by the FDNY Commissioner, Laura Kavanaugh, who has been sounding the alarm about the risk posed by certain lithium-ion batteries and the dangers that it actually poses on the lives of people. So already this year, 22 fires, 36 injuries, two deaths due to this injury. This is extremely troubling. Right now, I'd like for you to hear from the FDNY Commissioner, Laura Kavanaugh. Thank you, Deputy Mayor, for this forum to discuss this very critical issue that confronts both the citizens of New York and the first responders who are responding to this fire. We are coming at this problem from every single angle as an administration. We are talking to the New York City Council about additional regulation of these devices. We are talking to the Consumer Product Safety Commission about their regulatory authority and how we can apply it here and make sure that devices that are being sold in New York City are safe. So we really want to emphasize today two things. These are incredibly dangerous devices if they are unregulated or used improperly. They prevent or show an enormous amount of fire when they catch fire. They present often an immediate inability to exit one's room or one's apartment or one's home. And so it's really critical that we work with all of our partners up here in government as we are around enforcement, around education, around combating the hazards that these present to citizens and first responders. And as the deputy mayor said, everything is about community for us as an administration. Even as we regulate these devices, we recognize that devices are already in people's homes today. People are dependent on these devices for their work and for their jobs. And so it is essential for us to get to the community and make sure they're aware of the dangers and how they can most safely use a device that may already be in their home. And some critical points of safety are that you want to make sure that your device is not charging when you are sleeping. You want to make sure any device is not being tampered with, that you're not opening up the batteries and potentially making them more hazardous and more likely to catch fire. You want to make sure that these devices are not sitting in your hallway or your exit or your only way out of your room or your home. And most of all, you want to look for the UL certification and make sure that you have a certified device in your home. And we'd actually like to show a video today that will really emphasize for citizens why these are so dangerous, why there's so much fire as soon as a bike catches fire in a home and why it can be so difficult to get out of your apartment. So we're going to show that video here today. The deputy mayor mentioned we already had 22 fires this year, 36 injuries and two deaths. And I think you can see from watching this video why that can happen. That's a quadrupling already in the first quarter of this year compared to last year. And you can see from the volume of fire and the sudden nature of this explosion why it would be so difficult to get out of your home and so difficult for the first responders responding to get to you in a timely manner. These are incredibly dangerous devices and we must make sure that members of the community are handling them properly and using them safely. So again, we're going to come at this from every angle of enforcement but also want to do community outreach. We'll be in every community working with every stakeholder and everyone at this table to make sure we combat this hazard. So Laura, if I'm hearing you correctly, two of the most important takeaways, right? All very important. One, don't have them charging overnight. And two, don't have them charging in an area of regress from your home. Exactly. Don't put them between you and the only exit of your room or your home. Thank you. Under Mayor Adam's direction, the city has launched an inter-agency task force to tackle this issue for more fronts from the enforcement side, from the prevention side, and from the education and public awareness perspective. On the enforcement side, FDNY's fire marshals and the Bureau of Fire Prevention have joined forces with the sheriff's office to target commercial locations that are selling off-market batteries or are providing charging space for the mass quantities of batteries, which can be incredibly dangerous. Just yesterday, this task force conducted a sting operation at several locations that were in violation of the fire code related to the storage and charging of these devices. Commissioner Sheriff, what are the results of this task force? So let's take us through, what exactly does this look like and what can we expect in the future? Sheriff. Well, are you told me? Do you like me to kick us off? No, not a problem. So we joined the fire department in this different branches. We went out and inspected these locations. It was very informative as well as informative community. We get to see how dangerous as you're showing the pictures of these locations were. But we also worked with the buildings department and Connecticut and a few other agencies to make sure that we had a holistic response about addressing all the concerns. So we saw several locations that presented both the danger to not only to the people in the location, but they were located centrally with buildings that have families as well. So any one of these locations would have combusted into a fire. We think that not only would the locations themselves be in danger, but the residents of the community as well. Yeah, this was a really critical operation. This shows the partnership between agencies that's really required to tackle this. Some of these locations not only had dozens upon dozens of these devices in a small area, they also had sleeping quarters for young children nearby. And as you saw from the video, you could see why if one device exploded, it would be very difficult to get out. So we're really thankful for the sheriff helping us tackle these particularly dangerous locations. And one of the things the public is going to hear, they're going to hear so much more from this administration and how the agencies are going to be working together, pulling their resources, pulling their talent, pulling their creativity and ingenuity to deliver this public safety. So I just want to thank you two on that issue there. But back to you, Anthony, the sheriff's office is a critical arm of the public safety apparatus when it comes to enforcing our laws and not just as it relates to fire codes. Our deputy sheriffs have been now enforced recently, cracking down on these smoke shops operating within our communities that are illegally selling marijuana and other illicit products. What we are seeing right now is that these storefronts are not only conducting illegal sales, but they're becoming hotspots for other crimes as well, including in uptick in robberies due to the large amounts of cash sales that they generate. Now, a lot of people might wonder why the NYPD cannot set these stores down alone. And I'd like to ask the sheriff briefly to explain what his office's role is in this type of enforcement and what they're seeing. Again, thank you very much for the opportunity to come back to the community. Again, as the sheriff's office, we've been working very closely with all the agencies that we focus on. We currently worked on a database and control database for the city of New York with information received from the New York City Police Department, the Department of Consumer Affairs, the Office of Cannabis Management, and other agencies identifying locations for further investigation. In our initial database, there were over 1,400 locations that were identified. We combined that with the 4,000 locations that we licensed at the Department of Finance, licenses for selling cigarettes, and we began those enforcement efforts. And just prior to the task force, we began our task force on November 14th, three months prior to the task force, we probably issued 62 inspections were conducted. Three months after the task force, we've increased to 142 inspections, which accounts for 129% increase in inspections of the locations. Three months prior to the task force, we've also issued 166 civil violations. And currently, since the task force in the three months, we've issued over 285 violations accounting for half a million dollars in violations. Prior to the task force, again, they were issued 49 criminal court summonses. And after the task force, we're up to 133 criminal summonses that were issued. So it's a 171% increase. We have seized, since the task force began, over $8 million to merchandise. For the month of February alone, we conducted 34 inspections throughout the five boroughs. 12 inspections resulted in felony arrest. Two arrests resulted in seizures of firearms. 399 kinds of cigarettes were seized worth $45,000. A total of 112 pounds of cannabis flour were seized, valued at $202,000. And a total of 220 pounds of THC edibles were seized, over $60,000 of merchandise. As you see in some of these locations, we're now recovering weapons, imitation pistols as well. These are dangerous situations. People, the store owners and the people inside the stores are starting to arm themselves to protect themselves against robberies. We know that they've been working closely, we've been working closely with the New York City Police Department as well, going out and doing crime surveys at each of these locations, informing them safety precautions that they can take to protect themselves and their employees and the people that are frequenting these locations. We do not want you to start arming yourselves. We believe there are steps to be taken to protect both the community and the location and they will be working hand in hand with them. So we first take an educational approach, informing them about what the rules and regulations are and guiding them to NYC cannabis so they can participate in the legal market. We then seize the illegal products and then we take the corrective action that you have seen with the enforcement. It's something that continues to grow and we can continue that operation. We go out with not only New York City Police Department but with the Office of Cannabis Management, the Deputy Department of Consumer Workers Protections, Buildings Department and the Fire Department to make sure that when we go into a location, we're giving them an entire inspection. For the focus of the task force, we have been focusing on those locations where there have been reports of children being overdosed or people getting sick. We have focused on those locations that are closest to the schools and houses of worship and then we focus on the community complaints and continue the operation. We focus on all five boroughs and we make sure that we visit all the different communities that are filed complaints. Community partnership is extremely important. We listen to the reports and we document the reports that are given by the community. Your voices are important. Please let me report the new locations every day. We see new locations opening up. It has been a great public concern but the unregulated business presents a certain health hazard to all of our communities and those are the things that we want to protect our communities against getting sick or smoking some product that is mixed with products we don't know about. So there are only three legal cannabis locations that have been operational so far in the city. So anybody else operating is illegal or unlicensed and please make sure you continue to report those locations and collectively we will continue to go out and do the enforcement as necessary to fix the problem. Thank you. So Cheryl, let me just kind of understand this. One, you're going into these places and your task force consists of Hogan. I just want to make sure that everybody understands that this is a multi-prong effort. The Sheriff's Office, the New York City Police Department, the Department of Consumer Worker Protection and the State Office of Cannabis Management. And you're also finding firearms in there in some of these places as well. We're recovering firearms as well in these locations. Just the other day we had a location that had two firearms so we recovered them once far. Have we found any of these places to sell this marijuana to underage children? Again, these locations not only selling they're violating the cigarette tax codes or they're violating unlicensed cigarettes. They're selling banned vape products and they're selling cannabis products as well. We have been doing, working with the police department and conducting underage buys at these locations so they are also selling to minors. When you see on some of the camera screen that they showed you, a lot of these locations are packaging toward our children. These are all illegal. So anybody who, again, there's rules and regulations about being close to a school, houses of worship and the packaging that is on the website of the State Office of Cannabis Management. If they were trying to participate in the illegal market they would follow those rules and regulations. But what we are finding is we're now exploring other law enforcement efforts working collectively with the District Attorney's Office of all five boroughs about fraud and copyright infringement, things like that for the other packaging and the labeling. They have Frito-Lays and they have all the major labels that are frequently used by our children. And in fact, when you go into the stores you'll see that these edible products and candies that they're selling packaged for children are right next to the regular products that children will often buy and the sodas as well. So they're, again, this is very confusing for our children. It all has the possibility of having accidentally our youth by using these products. And we caution parents that when you take these products home if you're one of the people buying these addables, children don't eat one edible. Children, when they see candy they're gonna ingest more than one. And if they're ingesting the wrong product because they cannot tell the difference you may accidentally have your child over those. So please take the proper precautions. Thank you. Thank you. For our last update, we will hear from the commissioner of our Department of Corrections, Lou Molina. When commissioner Molina took the helm at the department last year, he and his leadership team inherited challenges that were decades in the making. I mean, I believe they have done a tremendous job addressing those issues, but certainly there's a lot more to be done. One area in particular that we focused on is the proliferation of drugs and our correction of facilities. Like cities across the United States, New York City is facing a fentanyl crisis. And unfortunately, our jails are not immune to this threat. As the commissioner often says, any death of a person in out care is a tragedy. These deaths are 100% preventable. If and only if we are armed with the tools and technology we need to keep the drugs out of these facilities. I'd like to turn it over to commissioner Molina now to discuss just what these tools are and the hands-on deck approach that the department has deployed to combat overdoses and offices. Lou. Good afternoon. Thank you, deputy mayor. I appreciate the opportunity to share updates about the work our agency is doing to keep New Yorkers safe. Over the last 14 months, we've been laser focused on rebuilding our agency and creating a safer working and living environment for staff and people in custody. Our indicated show we are moving in the right direction. Slashings and stabbings, fiscal year to date are down 10%. Use of false assaults on staff, fiscal year to date are down 19%. And assault on staff overall are down 43%. In addition, we continue to provide robust programming for people in custody and the expansion of our new tablet program is reducing idleness and keeping detainees engaged. As a reminder, we recently implemented the largest expansion of phone accessibility in the department's history to keep our detainees connected to their families and loved ones via our new tablet program. The Department of Corrections has taken unprecedented steps in recent weeks to reduce the flow of drugs coming into our jail facilities, working on multi-pronged plan to keep our staff and the people in custody safe. Recently, we've done staff and contract vehicle search operations, both on Rikers Island at our Burrow jail facility in the Bronx. We are rolling out body scanners on Rikers starting at the Robert and Davern Center, also known as RNDC. The body scanners already exist for people in custody and visitors who visit the detainees. We anticipate the body scanner process to go into effect in early March. Also internally contraband searches to remove existing drugs as well as contraband weapons from our facilities have been conducted since we took over the administration in January of 2022. In calendar year 2022, we had over 86 tactical search operations, recovering over 5,000 contraband weapons and over 1,300 drug or drug contraband paraphernalia from our facilities. This year, we have had 12 tactical search operations conducted, recovering 114 drug contraband or contraband paraphernalia and another almost 200 contraband weapons from our jail facilities. We have almost also trained 6,000 uniform staff on how to use Narcan and we are in the process of procuring additional Narcan. So in addition to the aid station and common areas of the facilities, we will have our uniform officers carrying Narcan on their person so that they can utilize the Narcan even faster if they believe somebody in custody is experiencing an overdose. We also have begun and have trained our canine dogs and had them imprinted with the common compound that's found in fentanyl so that when we can conduct search operations on fentanyl, these canines have the ability if fentanyl is soaked in paper and not mixed with another narcotic product, the dog will have the ability to pick up on those contraband narcotics as well from persons and from areas and from vehicles. Keeping our jail safe for everyone who works and lives is a priority for us and we are focused on taking a holistic approach to stopping the flow of drugs coming into our jail system. That's all. Thank you. So commissioner, I just wanna make sure that we all understand this probably the whole team understands this is that those body scanners, you've always had those what's the change now? Who is going to be scant now that was not scant before? So what's gonna be happening now is that we're turning our security apparatus with body scanning similar light to the airport. So we've always body scanned for years on detainees that are in our custody through our process of them being admitted into our system and on occasion when they have visits. Individuals that visit their loved ones are also body scanned as well to check for contraband narcotics. What's changing now is we're adding an added layer of security and all those that work in our facilities, our staff, contract staff, volunteers that work directly in our facilities at our access control points, they're also going to be body scanned as well to show that we're mitigating against contraband coming into our facilities. That's the biggest change. So the visitors was always and the detainees was always, now it's going to be the correction officers and the staff will work there as well, correct? Absolutely and contract providers as well. And contract guidance, okay. So thank you. So once again, I'd like to thank my colleagues here today. The team is working hand in hand, day in and day out to keep our city safe. It is our duty to make sure that people at home know exactly what is being done. You have a commitment from us to be transparent. You have a commitment from us to work together as a team and we need a commitment from you to help work with us. To that end, I'd like to open it up now for a few questions. Thank you, Deputy Mayor Banks. We will now open it up for some Q&A. Yesterday we asked New Yorkers to submit public safety related questions that they would like answered. Today we will start with a few of these questions that were submitted by the public. I will pose these to the group for a response. Our first question comes from Stephanie from Manhattan. She asked the NYPD, what are your plans regarding school safety? So Stephanie, that is something that is very important to us. And I think as we look into the papers and the press, there are a lot of instances of violence that are happening around our schools. So as the deputy mayor said, the mayor made sure that we connected with each other and we don't operate in silos. So I have regular communication with the Department of Education, Chancellor Banks. Our school safety officers are about 4,000 of them are in every public school in New York City. We started our safety corridor program which allows for there to be safe passage for kids who are going to and from school in certain areas that we're experiencing some concerns and challenges. But that's also in the subways because a number of our kids take the subways to school. I did when I went to school. So I think that the coordination with the Department of Education, with our school safety, with our YCOs, our youth coordination officers in the precincts that are going to be in the areas that times of dismissal is going to continue. Wherever we see spikes, wherever we see problems, we're gonna make sure we have the resources in place. We also started having our borough commanders and the precinct commanders coordinate with school superintendents and principals as well. So that collaboration that basically wrap around blanket of safety, you're gonna see more of it continuously around our schools. Thank you, Commissioner. Our next question comes from PJ from Queens for Fire Commissioner Kavanaugh. He asks, how do we ensure that lithium ion batteries for e-bikes and scooters are of desired quality and safety? Is there a seal or a governing body such as UL, which indicates a safer choice? That's a great question. UL is a certification that does indicate that something is up to safety standards. So we would recommend that people look for UL products when purchasing a device. Part of our outreach to the Consumer Product Safety Commission is to ask them to make sure that all devices being sold are UL certified. And so in addition to us encouraging the public to buy a UL certified device, the Consumer Product Safety Commission is also working with the administration to crack down on non-certified devices and make sure they're not sold in the city. Thank you, Commissioner. We do have a few more minutes to take a couple questions that are related to today's briefing from the members of the media that are on the line. Those who wish to ask a question, please use the raise hand function on your screen and we will do our best to call on you. Our first question comes from Miles Miller from NBC. Miles, your line is unmuted. Can you hear me? We can. Okay, great. Deputy Mayor, thank you for this forum. Your Lincoln lions look good. This is for the fire commissioner. Yesterday we were there and we saw which were really sort of terrible conditions for these e-bikes and particularly a kid living in that structure illegally. What can be done about that aspect of it? This is a family obviously that's in need. They find that they have to live behind a roll down gate with e-bike batteries that can explode not far from where they're living. That's a great question, Miles. As we mentioned earlier with the sheriff cracking down on particularly dangerous locations where there are dozens upon dozens of non-certified illegal devices and batteries is essential. Some of the conditions you saw yesterday are incredibly dangerous, as you mentioned. And as the video that we showed pointed out, that was just one device in that video and some of the locations that our inspectors found with the sheriff have dozens of devices. So imagine the consequences if there was to be a fire there for both the citizens and the first responders. So one big piece of this is making sure that locations like that are not operating. And then the second piece is education, is making sure we're outreaching to every single community in the city through all of our community stakeholders to make sure that people know how dangerous this is, that they are not sleeping in an area like that, that they don't have devices like that plugged in near their children. So education and enforcement will get us to a safer condition with these bikes. Thank you, Commissioner. Our next question will come from Darla Miles from ABC. Darla, you're now unmuted. Good morning. Can you hear me? We can. Okay, great. Good morning, Commissioner Soule, Deputy Banks and my acknowledges to everyone on the panel. Here's my overall overreaching question for this body this morning, specifically targeted towards Deputy Mayor Banks and Commissioner Soule. Tell us what is the overall goal of this particular public safety briefing? What do you plan to accomplish? Have you received the engagement today that you were hoping to by asking for questions? And how would you respond to critics to who might say this is just a victory lap and they're still not seeing the changes that they want? So let's just pull the lens back and talk to us about what the purpose of this is and do you feel like, why is it important and do you feel like you're accomplishing what you set out to accomplish with this briefing today and ongoing briefings moving forward? Yes, okay. One, I don't respond to critics, right? And you have the right to critique, that's fine. We're looking for progress here. But the overall goal is to actually let the public know exactly what we're doing and exactly to solicit as much feedback as we possibly can because we can't be an effective team without the contribution from what I call the sixth man. That's always been the community. As I said in remarks earlier, I don't know of executive and public safety that has been as successful as they could be without actually engaging in the community. One of the tips that I received when I was a young executive was count the amount of time that you're speaking to people that don't work in the agency you work in and I'll tell you who's successful or not. So we're looking to do and I think we've done a fantastic job as a starter inform what's going on. We want to get the input as much as possible because the more input that we get, right? That can come in form as a constructive critique that we put it into our recipe and ultimately the goal is to make everybody safer. But we have to keep them informed. We have to hear and see what they are seeing, what they hearing, put it into our recipe, make a better product and keep it safe. So actually I think that this is the first of many. I think we did it very well. I do want to salute my team which I don't do often enough. I certainly critique them a lot but I don't salute them enough. I think it was fantastic and I'm very confident that we're gonna achieve our mission here. May I just add to that? If you don't mind. I think it's important that we inform the public of what we're doing but as long as there is fear in the city, as long as people are being victimized, I will take no victory lap. We know we have a lot more work to do. We have seen some progress and that's encouraging but we will continue to use every resource we have to make the city safe and to bring those who victimize people in the city to account. So this is not a victory lap. We know we have a lot to do and our public holds us accountable for that and we hold ourselves accountable to make sure we get it done. Our next question comes from Emma Fitzsimmons from the New York Times. Emma, your line is now unmuted. Hi, good afternoon. Can you hear me? We can. Okay. So this question is for Mr. Banks and Mr. Molina. What are you doing to prepare to close Rikers in 2027 and do you share the mayor's recent concerns that that timeline might not be realistic? Well, the mayor has a concern that it's not realistic and we're looking into it, right? But I think that the city council passed the law stating that we have to go to Borough Base Jails, right? So as administration, we are looking to follow the law but we're also looking to see whether or not, how do we follow that law as expeditiously and practical as possible? Lord, you want to chime in? Yeah, I just think that the mayor and the deputy mayor of Banks have been taking a responsible look at the Borough Base Jail plan. We have publicly stated that the population estimates have not decreased as first anticipated by the former administration. So we have a responsibility to make sure that as individuals that commit crime, that the court believes those people should be in our custody, that we have the capacity to hold those individuals in our custody. Thank you. And for our final question, we will go to Joe Anuda from Politico and just a reminder, we are only taking questions that are related to today's briefing. Joe, your line is now unmuted. Hi, deputy mayor, thanks for hosting this. I was wondering if you could just explain a little bit, talk about your role in the administration, sort of, you know, why are you the best person to host briefings like this? And if you could talk a little bit about how your role differs from the police commissioner. Thanks. That's not a question. You know what, I always, people say, can I ask a question? I would say, you ask a question, doesn't mean I'm going to answer it. For one, it's not on topic two. I'm not, you know, with all due respect, I won't answer that particular question. I'm in this role because the person who was elected mayor has the authority to appoint a deputy mayor of public safety. And he believed that I should be the person in this particular role. And that's why I'm at that role in the story bottom line. All right, thank you everybody. That is all the time we have for today. As the deputy mayor said, these briefings will be held regularly and we look forward to seeing everyone at our next briefing. Have a good day.