Transcript: Mayor Adams Makes Public Safety-Related Announcement With NYPD Commissioner Caban

October 26, 2023

Mayor Eric Adams: Good morning. I’m Mayor Adams, joined by [the] administration, the team leaders. We had a series of things that took place overnight during the evening and early this morning, and we believe that during these times where there's a high level of tension in the city we want to be as up front and as informed as possible to the public to keep them knowledgeable of what is unfolding and what is taking place.

And so today the police commissioner and Deputy Mayor Banks and I are coming to just give you some brief updates: one, on a 7 year old child we lost today due to a vehicle crash. The Chief of Department Maddrey is going to give us an update on that. He was at the scene, and he's going to give us an update on that.

The second is an incident that took place at one of our local colleges here in the city. Chief Chell will give a complete overview on what took place there as well. And lastly, Commissioner Rebecca Weiner is going to give an update on what we have dealing with the shooting that took place in Maine. And we're going to give an overview on what we're doing as a city, as we know the person is still at large.

And our hearts go out not only to the victims in Maine but we also are lifting up the family of the 7 year old child that we lost here due to a vehicle crash in Brooklyn. That was my old precinct, 88 precinct, I know the area very well. And no parent wants to start their day of losing a loved one to any form of incident. So, it is really, it's heart wrenching for all of us. We all feel it. And we thought it was just important as these three issues play out and the current issue that's still playing out in Maine, we wanted to give a complete update.

The commissioner and I, we have a line of duty funeral to attend. After the commissioner does his briefing, we'll turn it over to the administration, the personnel, NYPD to give the final and answer any questions that you may have. Commissioner.

Police Commissioner Edward Caban: Okay. Good morning, everyone. And as the mayor said, first let me say my heart goes out to the entire community of Lewiston, Maine. Those folks are going through a tough time right now, and the thoughts and prayers of the entire NYPD are with them.

So, we all know this is a great deal of tension and conflict in the world at this time, so when we hear about act of violence this magnitude you begin to wonder what motivation might be. And for everyone sitting up here, we also have to ask another question right away: is there any connection to New York City?

And while this is not our investigation, and answers to these questions are never immediately known, that doesn't mean we have the luxury of waiting for those answers. As law enforcement officials in Maine began flooding the area and working the case, we kept close watch here. My team, along with City Hall, had multiple conference calls to share information.

As more details began to emerge and the sheer magnitude of the violence became clear, we made a decision to start marshaling our resources. Granted, there was no specific credible threat to New York City, but to me, we could not remain idle. Our mission is to always protect New Yorkers, and that's exactly what we're going to do.

Once a video of the suspect emerged it wasn't long before authorities identified a person of interest. We took that person's image and sent out an alert to every smartphone in our department. We also made the decision to dispatch investigators to Lewistown, both to gather information as quickly as possible and to offer any support in any way we could.

Lewiston is approximately five hours away from New York City by car, so with each passing hour we also had our duty to ensure we had appropriate resources at the ready should the suspect somehow turn up here. I'll tell you right now, I'm extremely proud of our officers who immediately jumped into action putting a plan in place in such short notice.

New Yorkers need to know the NYPD always stands at the ready to protect them and keep our city safe. We will never remain either when there is a possible threat looming over us, and that is exactly what we demonstrated last night. As this case continues to unfold and the search intensifies for the suspect, you can count on the NYPD to remain vigilant and ready to do our part. Thank you very much.

Mayor Adams: And as the commissioner and I leave, and Chief Chell, please update the number of protests and rallies we've had over the last few days. And I cannot really thank the men and women of the New York City Police Department for the job of allowing people to peacefully protest and at the same time, maintaining order and discipline. And Chief Chell will go over the number of protests and rallies that took place, but the men and women of the Police Department, even some of the protests took place in close proximity of each other, but they maintained the level of professionalism that we expect from the New York City Police Departments.

So, I really want to thank them over these last few difficult days, and there are more difficult days ahead of us. But the men and women of the Police Department really responded appropriately. A job well done as we continue to ensure that the people of the city are safe to go about carrying out their daily functions. Again, I'll turn it over to our chief of department, Chief of Department Maddrey.

Jeffrey Maddrey, Chief of Department, Police Department: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, thank you, commissioner. Good morning to members of the media. As our heart goes out and our prayers go out to the families and the communities of Lewiston, Maine, right now my heart and my prayers are going out to the community of Clinton Hills and the Fort Greene Ingersoll Whitman section as this morning I made it to the scene where we lost a young 7 year old.

At approximately 10 minutes to eight, or 7:50 in the morning, one of our departmental tow trucks with a tow on the hitch was traveling westbound on Myrtle Avenue in the downtown Brooklyn area, Clinton Hills area. The tow truck, as it was proceeding westbound, arrives at the intersection of Myrtle Avenue and North Portland Avenue, attempting to make a right hand turn to go northbound on North Portland Avenue.

Simultaneously, a young mother and her 7 year old son were walking on the sidewalk of Myrtle Avenue at the intersection of North Portland Avenue attempting to cross the street going westbound on North Portland Avenue. As the department tow truck made the right hand turn and started to pass the crosswalk, the young child who was walking with his mother was struck. The child went down, the tow truck operator stopped immediately. EMS arrived to the scene and immediately pronounced the young child DOA on the scene.

Right now it's an active investigation. The collision investigation squad is on the scene. And as it is a very new investigation, the details are limited, and we'll provide an update when we can. But again, my heart goes out to the family of that young boy and his mother and his school, his teachers who were also on the scene. A very tough scene to be at this morning. Thank you.

John Chell, Chief of Patrol, Police Department: Good morning. Just in regards to Cooper Union, I want to get a couple of key facts right before I give you a quick timeline. We were aware of the walk out protest rally at the school yesterday. School officials asked us to be there, our police were there from start to finish. 

The school asked us that we will be in plain clothes, and that's a protocol that we're going to change and talk to all the schools city wide about that protocol. There was no direct threats, there was no damage and there's no danger to any students in that school.

Like I said, our cops there all day from start to finish. They with the 20 protestors that were in the school. They were there at the library. The library doors, they were not... The students were not barricaded. The doors were open but closed. A school administrator thought it was prudent to close the doors and place private security as the protesters were coming down the stairs.

So, at approximately one o'clock, the protests starting in front of Cooper Union as a walk out of students, roughly 70 pro Palestine and about 20 Israeli students, if you can imagine, parallel to each other. The Palestinian students were chanting, the Israeli students were silent. This went on for a couple hours, but what happened was people were passing by the school, community people, were getting upset with the protest and were starting to get agitated from that point of view.

Around 3:30, 20 of the 70, approximately 20 of the 70 protestors from the Palestinian side went into the school. Now, they're supposed to scan in. They are students, let's be clear. All the people here were all students, part of this institution. As the 20 kids went into the school, they're supposed to swipe in, but they kind of just rushed passed the swipe in. Administration error that the school's going to deal with today from school officials.

From there, the 20 students wanted to go up to their president's office, which they did. They got inside the office the waiting area, if you will and they were chanting. School officials, at that time with the police on the scene and private security, felt safe and they wanted to allow the students to keep talking. That happened, was going for about a half hour.

When the 20 protesters came down the stairs at Cooper Union, another school official heard them coming down, and that person made the decision to, let's close the library doors, we'll put one of our private security and let the protesters pass. For about roughly 10 minutes, approximately 10 minutes, they were banging on the doors of the library and banging on some transparent windows that you see into the library.

From that point, the protesters left. School officials thought it was important to ask the Israeli students, do you need help getting home, any Uber, do you want an Uber ride? They said no, we feel safe, we're good, and they all left. We converged on the school last night. We had this full discussion with school officials last night. We walked through the whole timeline, and we asked them what they need today.

So, today there will be a uniformed presence outside that school, because again, these kids are all students who go to school, and some share the same classes. So, we'll be there to make sure everything goes peaceful today. And that's where we stand right now with Cooper Union.

Deputy Commissioner Rebecca Weiner, Intelligence and Counterterrorism, Police Department: Good morning, everybody. And again, our hearts go out absolutely to everyone who was affected by the incident in Maine last night. And we will give you a brief update on what we as NYPD have been doing in coordination with our partners, but just to underline, this is not an NYPD investigation, it's an investigation that's being led by federal, state and local partners up in Maine with whom we've been in continuous and extensive contact since the incident occurred.

Starting just before seven p.m. yesterday evening, an individual, a person of interest who's been identified as Robert Card, allegedly entered two locations, a restaurant bar and a bowling alley, and opened fire on all of the innocent people who were inside the location. And like we've seen way too many times, the results were devastating.

Our thoughts and prayers remain with the folks of Lewiston. The individual persons of interest's photo was made available yesterday evening. He is currently not in police custody. The hunt is ongoing and very dynamic.

We are quite confident at this point that this horrific crime has no nexus to New York City. We can't speculate, obviously, as to any motivation, but we don't see any indications at this moment again, from our perspective here in New York of any political or ideological leaning.

But what we can say is through extensive information sharing with other agencies, NYPD has worked through the night to make sure that New York City remains safe, and immediately after he was first identified by authorities in Maine, his photographs and all of the identifying information that we had was distributed widely to officers across the city.

We've also adjusted our resource [inaudible] and Chief Chell can speak to these as well to provide additional touchpoints, security and observation points at places of entry into the city since yesterday evening. And as is our standard operating practice whenever an incident like this happens whether it's overseas or here across the country, we coordinate extensively with local law enforcement, with federal law enforcement on the ground to make sure of two things: one, that we have the most up to date information; and two, that we can support the ongoing investigation if and how ever we can as needed.

So, we ask the proverbial New York question, does this have any impact to New York and do we have anything in our holdings that could enhance or support the investigation. We do this via an information sharing network called Operation Sentry that's been established for over a decade that includes several hundred law enforcement agencies across the country.

And we're extremely grateful to federal, state and local law enforcement partners via Operation Sentry in Maine and the broader northeast who have been, in real time as they have been dealing with this investigation and manhunt, sharing critical information with us to make sure that we can protect New York City.

And I do want to reiterate, we don't see any nexus to New York City with this incident, tragic as it was, but we've been saying this a lot over the last couple of weeks and we always do: we urge all New Yorkers to continue to go about your business but to remain alert to your surroundings. And we've been saying this for a while now: if you see anything concerning, please don't hesitate, please reach out. You can call 911, you can call a police officer or our counterterrorism hotline, which is 1 (888)-NYCSAFE.

Chief Chell: All right. So, last night, late, late, late night hours, the executive staff of the Police Department and City Hall are planning a strategy as to what we could do to mitigate any chances of this individual coming to attack New York City. The first thing we activated, our JOC, which is right behind you to make sure they're untouchable to the agencies Amtrak Port Authority, MTA.

We put out what we call critical messages to every cop and every uniformed person the city with the literature we had by picture and the Subaru he was driving. We had an alert on that car, LPL cars were deployed in every city crossing into the city last night and continues this morning. Even though that car has been recovered, we're still standing with that posture.

Right now we have a Level 4 activation going on in New York City, that's over 900 cops mobilized. We split the city into two parts, and those police officer with people will be deployed to high sensitive locations throughout the day. This is in an abundance of caution, we're doing this. Our aviation units will be staggered today throughout the day, [as we] keep a continuous flight up to make sure if anything happens we're ready to go.

Again, this is cautionary. As the deputy commissioner mentioned, no direct threats to New York City but everything always comes back to New York City [inaudible] or actually comes back. So, this is what we did last night. We're going to stay in this posture all day, and we'll watch news and get updates from Maine as we go. Okay.

Question: I wanted to ask about the child who was killed in Brooklyn. I don't know, I'm not as familiar with NYPD tow truck drivers, but are there in car dash cams or any indications the driver was distracted at all or I guess any more information [inaudible].

Chief Maddrey: This incident. Thank you for your question, first and foremost. This incident is very new, so our collision investigation squads of detectives, they're going through all the protocols. You know, our two truck operators are civilian operators, civilian members of the service, so that's going to be all part of the investigation: cameras, witness accounts and inspecting, of course, the inside of our two vehicles and seeing what it was equipped with.

Question: [Inaudible.]

Chief Maddrey: No, it actually had a tow, a car, a vehicle on the hitch, so it was towing a car headed in the direction of the Brooklyn tow pound.

Question: [Inaudible.]

Chief Chell: All right, so this is about protests, I'll just give you a quick update before I get to that question. We've had roughly 110 protests over the last 19 days encompassing roughly 70,000 protesters. We've effected 233 arrests...well, no, 225 of those arrests approximately were summonses for being in the street or acts of disobedience.

We spoke with CUNY schools last week about our protocols, what we're doing and how we're doing it. If you recall, about 10 days ago at Columbia we had a great meeting with Columbia that didn't want us on the campus, we met with them, we said what were going to do, and it worked out well. So, the schools were onboard with us. We'll be in uniform at all the schools, that's a protocol we're going to change today in response to Cooper Union yesterday, so we'll do that.

When we met with the schools, all the schools have been cooperative. We're going to continue to do what we've been doing. When there is a protest at a school, we have resources on site, we have resources off site, and we were working well with the school, so we're going to continue to do that.

Question: [Inaudible.]

Chief Chell: Right, so we have locations designated by each patrol, borough schools, high sensitive locations, whatever, cops are already there. So, for instance, last night Man. South we had cops at CUNY schools even though there wasn't a protest. So, we are doing that.

Question: [Inaudible].

Deputy Commissioner Weiner: Yes, and this is, again, part of what we often will do when there's a significant incident, we can support investigation with resources that we have back here and we do that habitually. And we can support the investigation up in the field, and that's a good way to make sure that we're understanding everything in as close to real time as possible.

There are a number of law enforcement agencies that have surged to Maine since the incident took place, both federal, state and local, so NYPD is part of a larger team of regional partners that are there just to help out as this manhunt is underway.

Question: [Inaudible].

Deputy Commissioner Weiner: All of that, those kinds of investigative steps are the reason that we would surge folks to the area. We have no indications of any family members in our AOR right now our Area Of Responsibility but again, this is usually a collective effort when it's a high priority investigation like this involving an area that is relatively rural.

So, there's a number of law enforcement agents who are there on the ground that can help wherever the investigation leads us. But again, we see no indication of any access to New York City at all.

Question: [Inaudible.]

Chief Maddrey: We don't have that information at this time.