Mayor Eric Adams: The police commissioner will give an update on the incident that took place yesterday with a 16-year-old child at Cardozo High School, [who] was in the possession of a weapon. And just before we start, I just really want to thank our partners, the crisis management team members who are here, and DA Clark, who has just been a real leader around some of the enforcement gang takedowns, really finding upstream solutions, collaborating with our office.
We cannot thank her enough, and our other DAs as well, but we're in the Bronx, so I want to give credit where credit is due. We can't do this alone. As good as the New York City Police Department is at going after dangerous guns, as we're looking at here on both these tables, the fact is, it's a partnership. It's a partnership with the men and women of the crisis management team. They are not out there with a vest on. They're not out there with a weapon to defend themselves.
And they're going into dangerous environments, and they do it with the drive and energy to stop what many people don't realize, retaliatory shootings. After there's a shooting, there's a desire to go out and to retaliate in hospitals, in front of courtrooms, on our streets. And what these men and women are doing every day to stop the retaliatory shootings is really assisting us in keeping gun violence down. And I just really want to thank them.
Their work goes unnoticed, and oftentimes, they do it without any fanfare at all. I am proud of the many records that have been set by this administration. We say over and over again, the first time ever, the first time ever, the first time ever, but no record is more significant and important than what we're doing around the removal of illegal guns off our street. This year, we removed 4,000 illegal guns off our streets. And one of those guns was removed yesterday with a 16-year-old child that was in possession of.
Stopping the flow of guns is something that we need our federal partners to help us. But what the Police Department is doing every day of zeroing in on illegal guns, the guns that we remove are saving lives. And I cannot thank the police commissioner and our entire law enforcement apparatus, the men and women who are out on patrol every day doing this job. We have now removed close to over 23,700 illegal firearms since the start of this administration. Those are 23,000 guns that are not going to be used to harm innocent people, take the lives of family members, kill or maim our police officers and countless number of people who are victimized by gun violence.
And as summer comes to its official close in just a few days, we have seen tremendous dividends because we took so many guns off our street. In the summer violent zones, we're witnessing an astonishing 18.3 percent crime drop, more than 400 fewer victims, shooting victims, declines in each and every one of the seven major felonies—murders down, rapes down, robbery, felonies assault, burglaries down, grand larceny and auto theft. All of these areas are down in our summer violence zones. But we're going even further when you look at it.
In the Bronx, where we're standing today, because of the collaboration with our district attorney and this crisis management team, we're hearing about high-profile shootings that are taking place in the Bronx, and we want to stop every shooting. But the fact is, here in the Bronx, crime was down more than 10 percent.
Today, we're now standing in the 48th precinct, because gun arrests in their summer violence zones were up 66.7 percent. This inspector and his team here are doing an amazing job of keeping violence off our streets. And while, at the same time, shooting incidents in the summer violence zones have evaporated, that is what you call precision policing.
Not one shooting in the 48th precinct zone number one during the summer, down from four shootings last year, not one in that zone. This is the type of success that has resulted in us being mere days away from concluding our seventh straight quarter of crime reduction. We should also talk about an astronomical 54 percent decrease in shootings and 34 percent reduction in homicides citywide, compared to the year before I took office. The year before we took office, the numbers were high.
We put the plans in place, and the result speaks for themselves—54 percent decrease in shootings, 34 percent reductions in homicides citywide. That's what you call results. Over the last three years– three years and nine months, we have worked to create safer streets, safer subways. Crime in our subway system is down. When you take away the two years of COVID, you see the numbers speak for themselves. This is a safer city, and we're going to continue to drive to make it safer. We cannot go backwards.
We have to continue leaning into the success that we have materialized for New York. 2024 was the fourth lowest year for shootings in New York City's recorded history, and with shooting incidents and shooting victims at record lows for the eighth month of the year. 2025 is on track to be even safer. These numbers are not [an] accident. It's a combination of what we've always talked about, upstream solutions, 100,000 Summer youth jobs.
When you look at the Summer Rising program, paid internship programs, dealing with those who are formerly incarcerated, giving them opportunities not to stay on a revolving cycle of violence, these upstream solutions—Universal Afterschool Program, 3-K and 3-K programs—what we have done upstream has allowed our prosecutors to do the job downstream, as well as our police officers, properly funding our district attorney's offices, giving them the tools they need to do their jobs.
It's the combination of upstream and downstream that's creating a smooth stream of nonviolence in our city. And as we have seen so often, taking action on legal guns leads to fewer shootings and lower crime. Thousands of guns off the street means thousands of lives that are saved. Thousands of families [are] protected from violence and tragedy, and entire communities made safer, stronger and more peaceful. Too many families have been impacted by gun violence.
I know it because I am in the hospitals, at the funerals, knocking on the doors, speaking to family members and loved ones, as they are devastated with gun violence that has continuously impacted particularly underserved communities. And that's why we want to make sure we put the resources where they are needed. Children shot walking to school, officers shot while sitting in patrol cars, grandmothers caught in crossfire on our streets. These are people who we are fighting to protect, and we will continue to dedicate our lives and dedicate our services to protect.
Each gun we take off the street has a positive and protective impact that ripples out across our city and uplifts every aspect of our lives. But every firearm taken off our street is only one part of the journey. The criminal justice system is made up of several components. We need our lawmakers and our judges to do their job. That is how we deal with this issue of criminality in our city. It can't continue to be a revolving door. Each time we hear of a shooting and see a long list of gun charges on a person who committed the shooting, that sends a terrible message that we are not taking this violence seriously.
We're doing so as police officers, as [a] crisis management team. We're asking the other parts of this system, do your job. Let's make sure dangerous people don't go through the revolving cycle of being back on our street. Too many people who are carrying these illegal guns have repeated interactions of violence with law enforcement. And that must change, because as I have said so many times, public safety is a prerequisite to prosperity. It's a prerequisite to strong communities and vibrant streetscapes, good schools, [and] a good life for working-class families in our city.
And again, I want to thank the NYPD, those men and women who are doing this job every day, and Police Commissioner Tisch for her leadership. And as the commissioner has stated over and over again, there is no Police Department in America that's doing what we're doing to deal with gun violence. We're the safest big city in America, and we are aiming to keep it that way. I want to turn it over to the police commissioner of the City of New York.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch: Thank you, sir. I'm going to start with a brief update about Cardozo High School. A few things. First, the school opened this morning without incident. We are doing scanning at the school. Historically, this has not been a scanning school, but there was scanning this morning, and there will continue to be for the foreseeable future. We've also, of course, beefed up our deployments at the school, including both uniformed officers as well as our school safety agents, so you'll see a big police presence there and into the future.
Second, the 16-year-old is being charged with criminal possession of a weapon and making terroristic threats. We are working very closely with Queens DA Melinda Katz on that, and he is an adolescent offender. Third, we conducted a search last night. It was a consent search of the 16-year-old's room. It yielded two additional 9-millimeter bullets found in his closet, consistent with the 9-millimeter Taurus weapon that we recovered at the school.
Fourth, the 9-millimeter Taurus was purchased legally by a licensed firearm permit holder in South Carolina on January 9th, 2025, making the time [for] crime 252 days. The Joint Firearms Task Force, which we sit on and is led by the ATF, has opened up a case to find out exactly how that weapon made its way from South Carolina to Queens. Now to the topic at hand, the milestone of 4,000 guns seized that the mayor announced today is the result of persistent, highly proficient, precision police work.
For the past eight and a half straight months, NYPD officers seized an average of 15 illegal guns every single day. It is an unrelenting, uncompromising pace, and by every metric, this work has made our city safer. Shooting incidents and shooting victims in New York City are both at their lowest levels ever. Murders have declined every year since Mayor Adams took office, and they are now down to their second lowest level in recorded history citywide.
We just had the safest July and August on our subways ever outside of the two pandemic years. And this past summer, the season where we typically see spikes in gun violence and other major crimes citywide, your NYPD cops didn't just slow the trend, they reversed it. Citywide shootings over the summer were down by 23 percent compared to the same period last year. And where we really see incredible dividends are in the parts of the city that are most plagued historically by crime and violence, our summer zones.
Four months ago, we began deploying thousands of cops in footposts in those areas and during the times that they are needed most. And that plan worked. Over the past 19 weeks, in our summer zones, shootings fell by more than 47 percent during deployment hours. This includes a 77 percent reduction in Manhattan North, a 46 percent reduction in Brooklyn North, and right here in the Bronx, shootings in our zones were down by more than 40 percent.
On shootings, overall crime in our summer zones went down more than 18 percent citywide, with crime reductions in every single borough during deployment hours. This is the intersection of thoughtful planning and focused execution. And it's what happens when you give the best law enforcement officers in the world a clear mandate as the mayor did. Get the guns. Case in point, just last week in two separate incidents on the same day, officers assigned to summer zones in the 44th precinct were in the right place at the right time, but not by any chance.
It was because of our data-driven analysis that put them there. In the first incident, officers went to investigate a disorderly group on their footposts and observed two males drinking beer and playing loud music on the sidewalk. When they engaged the men, one of them became combative. That's when officers recovered a loaded .38 special revolver from his fanny pack. And in the second incident, two other officers, also on their footpost, were flagged down outside of a nightclub on Ogden Avenue by witnesses who said that they saw a man with a gun.
During a canvas, a witness pointed out the perp, who was found in possession of a loaded semi-automatic 9mm firearm with an extended magazine inside of a stolen SUV. And then a month ago, in the 40 precinct's summer zone, officers stopped a man for dangerously riding an e-bike on the sidewalk.
When asked for ID, he gave the officers a fake name. And when that didn't work, he attempted to flee on foot. He was caught after a brief pursuit and arrested on a slew of charges, including for the loaded 9mm handgun he was carrying in his backpack. And once he was identified, it turned out he was a known gang member wanted for two prior shots fired incidents and a previous stabbing, and already had three prior gun charges to his name.
Our strategy here is clear. Go after the guns, but that's not all. We are also going after the gangs. These are the people who not only carry these weapons, but who have no second thoughts about using them. In 2025, our Gun Violence Suppression Division has carried out the most gang takedowns in that unit's history. And in total, our Detective Bureau has conducted 55 big case takedowns and arrested nearly 400 gang members so far this year, taking shooting recidivists and their guns out of our neighborhoods.
Despite these wins, I want to echo the mayor's persistent call about the unacceptable pipeline of illegal guns pouring into our city. We should not be in a position to take 4,000 guns off of New York City streets in less than nine months. This is daring and dangerous work, and no one does it better than the women and men of the New York City Police Department. They have dedicated their lives to putting the safety of others above their own, and I am consistently in awe of their heroism, their resolve, and the passion that they bring to this quite dangerous work. But they can't do it alone.
Over the past four years, Mayor Adams has put public safety at the center of his vision for New York City. He's thrown his full support behind this department's mission, and as we see today, the results speak for themselves. This milestone is so much more than a number, and the historic decline in shooting victims that resulted goes far beyond any headline, because one person lost to gun violence is far too many. This is literally life and death, and no one understands that, unfortunately, better than our next speaker.
His mother, Mama Z, was a pillar of the Harlem community, a trailblazer who became the first Black woman to own a bodega in New York City. She spent her life caring for the people in her neighborhood, and her sudden death by a stray bullet last May shocked and devastated our city. And it was another reminder of just why we do this work and who we do it for. Today, Jarian Jordan, Mama Z's son, is here to speak about what's truly at stake. Thank you for being here.
Jarian Jordan: Good morning. My name is Jarian Jordan, and I'm here as a son who lost his mother, and as a voice for everyone who has lost someone to gun violence. My mother, known as Mama Z, was the heartbeat of Harlem. She wasn't just my mom. She was the mother of the community. She fed the hungry, she encouraged the hopeless, and she stood as a matriarch for generations. But one stray bullet ended her life, just like that. One moment she was here, the next she was gone. And with her passing, a light went out into our family and into this city.
Gun violence doesn't just take lives. It steals futures. It shatters families. It leaves communities with wounds that never truly heal. I live with those wounds every single day. But I know what my mother would say. She would say, don't cry for me. Stand up, speak up, and fight for change. Mayor Adams and Police Commissioner Tisch and the entire NYPD are doing the work my mom would have wanted. You're getting guns off the streets. More than 4,000 so far this year alone.
That work saves lives. That work keeps families whole. That work honors my mom. And no, I can't bring mom back, but I can carry on her spirit forward. And I believe all of us can honor her and every victim of gun violence by standing together, refusing to stay silent, and fighting for a future where bullets don't decide who lives or who dies. I want to say thank you again, sincerely, to Mayor Adams, to Commissioner Tisch, and again to the entire NYPD. Thank you.
Darcel Clark, District Attorney, Bronx County: Good morning. Jarian, and you know that my condolences are with you and your family. Your mother, with this effort, what you see here, these guns on these tables, this great mayor, this great police commissioner, the men and women of NYPD, this Crisis Management system, tells you that your mother's life was not in vain. I want you to know that. As Bronx district attorney, again, I stand here thankful to the mayor for the support that you have given my office, financially and otherwise, by focusing on public safety as a number one priority, which is my number one priority as a district attorney.
To the police commissioner, thank you for your partnership and your leadership. And to the men and women of NYPD here in the Bronx and throughout the city, you are doing a tremendous job. We should say thank you. When you see a police officer, say thank you to them, because look at these guns. Do you know what could have happened every time an officer tried to retrieve one of these from somebody? And those things have happened, not just to police officers, but to members of the community. So when you see one of them, thank them, because they stand their harms away. They stand in between you and the safety that we need.
My office conducted or started what I call my peace initiative, which is precision enforcement and community engagement. That has been my approach to guns and the violence in the Bronx. You've just heard about the precision enforcement. This is a result of that. We're doing it every day. My prosecutors are prosecuting these cases every single day. 4,000 guns removed from the city this year, 770 of them in the Bronx, 800 arrests in the Bronx for gun possession. So we're doing the work, but more can be done.
And I need the partnership of everybody. It can't just be the DAs and NYPD. Every single person that lives in this county is a stakeholder and plays a role in the public safety here in the Bronx. The crisis management system, all my partners, you guys are there, working very hard between the time the person picks up the gun and that bullet leaves the chamber. But once it leaves the chamber, then it falls to me and the NYPD. But you're doing your job, because I know there's countless incidents that we don't know about, because you were there, right next to that person, stopping them from making that bad decision.
And I thank you for being there. Keep up the good work. Keep up the good work, because that is helping to drive the numbers down. We need to reach our young people. We need to reach them, the summer jobs is one way, the internships, all of these things will help engage them so that they won't pick up a gun, but they'll pick up a book instead. They'll go to a training to make themselves better. I understand there's an effort now within the gang community talking about dropping your flags. I'm all for that. I'm all for that. I know the mayor will be, too.
And any resource that we can provide to help a young person get out of that game, I'm here to make sure that that happens. You can trust me to make sure that that happens. That's what we need to do. But at the same time, don't get it twisted. I'm going to do my job. And you all have seen me do it, day in and day out. I'm tired of going to funerals, too, and vigils. I just got off the phone with the borough president, who couldn't be here today because she had another commitment. But she and I [speak] daily about what's happening and doing all that we can to do the prevention, as well as the intervention I'm doing in the courts, with the courts.
But the prosecution is real, and I'm going to do it. And she and I are on the phone all the time, the leadership here in the Bronx, Chief Gurley, Inspector Alps. We know each other very well. And we're doing the work that needs to be done. But I need everybody to do it. And I'm speaking directly to the community, as well. If you know something about these guns, speak up, because you know what? If you don't, that bullet may end up hitting you or one of your family members, and somebody knew about the gun and didn't say anything. So I'm begging you.
There's plenty of ways to anonymously let us know what's happening. We need to do it. We need the federal partners. They are doing their work. The police commissioner and the federal authorities announced two indictments recently on murders and gun possession and trafficking that's happening. We're doing that. And my office engages with them every single day with the ATF. So know that my focus [now] is not only the homicides that we have, it's not only the nonfatal shootings, which are bullet to skin, but nobody died, but my focus also now is the gun, as well.
And I'm going to do everything that I can to start tracing those guns. We're already doing it, but it's going to be an increased intentionality about getting that done now. And if we could stop the flow from coming in, they don't have the opportunity to use it. So that's where we are as far as the Bronx DA, as far as the Bronx community on what we can do to continue to make the Bronx safer. I'm glad the numbers are down, but I want to see them down further, because one shot fired is what? One shot too many. Thank you.
Question: Hi. You had additional resources in these summer zones and the numbers decreased significantly. Are you going to continue with that full court press, not just in the summer, but for the rest of the year?
Police Commissioner Tisch: Yes, it’s a simple answer. We saw a strategy work very well this summer. And so while we do plan to change the location of the zones up for our fall plan, we do have a fall zone plan that includes thousands of officers working foot posts on the streets and at the times where they're needed most.
Question: Do you feel that the uniforms make a difference, uniform presence makes a difference?
Police Commissioner Tisch: Oh, absolutely. To combat certain types of crimes, among the shootings, a uniform presence, an engaged officer on that block makes a huge difference. And that is one of the main reasons that you are seeing incredible crime declines citywide, but specifically in our zones.
Question: You mentioned that scanning wasn't previously done at the Cardozo High School, but is now after yesterday's incident. Can you talk a little bit about how– what that's getting looks like and how it's determined where it's going to happen?
Police Commissioner Tisch: So we look at a number of factors, but among them, gun or weapons issues at a school. And the fact of the matter is over the past year at Cardozo High School, we have not had a single report or incident involving a gun. So that school had not previously been a candidate for scanning, but as I mentioned, it is happening as of today at that school. A lot of it is making the community there, the students, the teachers, the parents feel safe in the school.
Question: On the school incident, the gun, you say the investigation is continuing as to where and how it got to Queens. Is there any sense that this teenager has family relatives there or is this a gang-related situation?
Police Commissioner Tisch: The investigation on this is ongoing at this time, and we'll update you when we have more on it.
###