Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Following Record Low Gun Violence in 2025, Governor Hochul Announces Shootings Continue to Decline Through the First Quarter of 2026

Governor Kathy Hochul today announced continued progress in reducing gun violence across communities participating in the State’s Gun Involved Violence Elimination (GIVE) initiative, with new data showing significant declines in shootings and gun deaths through the first three months of 2026. Through March 2026, the 28 police departments participating in the GIVE initiative collectively reported 81 shooting incidents involving injury, down 65 percent compared to 229 during the same period in 2021. The number of individuals shot declined 66 percent, from 262 to 88, while the number of individuals killed by gun violence dropped 74 percent, from 28 to 11. During the first quarter of this year, these three metrics reported by the Buffalo Police Department reached historic, 20-year lows, with shooting incidents with injury down 57 percent compared to the same period in 2025. At the same time, five police departments — in Utica, Troy, Newburgh, Mount Vernon and Hempstead — reported zero shooting incidents in the first three months of 2026.

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

 Everybody's smiling today, I wonder why. Yeah, I think I know why. Heck of a night last night. Let's hear it for the Sabres, go Sabres. A thriller — the likes of which we have not seen in a long time, and all I can say is Sabres are on their way. What a great place to be the morning after as we continue the great tradition of winning.

I wanted to come to Buffalo today, here in the Erie County DA's office, because we've become aware of some extraordinary news and I want to acknowledge our great District Attorney, Mike Keane, who you’ll be hearing from momentarily for all the work that he and his team do to keep the public safe. Also, our County Executive, Mark Poloncarz, who's been a great partner of mine for many decades. And our new Mayor, Sean Ryan, who's working hard to keep the city safe as well.

So I'm not in Albany right now. I'll be there very shortly, but I just wanted to come and really talk about what is amazing because we have made history. We have made history here in Buffalo and across the state, but this is deeply personal to me. The people of Buffalo know my heart is with them, as always, even if I'm not here physically, and there's a topic that we've, maybe we've not been hearing about it much because things are going well. You don't hear about when the planes land safely. I feel the same is true when the crime is under control and crime rates are going down. You don't hear much about it. But my point is this — we can't take that for granted. It doesn't happen because you hope it happens. It happens because there's intentional strategies and investments that I want to talk about right now. So, since I, when I first came into office in 2021, crime was out of control. It was surging all over the state of New York. Places like Buffalo were literally under siege and previously, at the time, in Buffalo shootings had doubled. Think about that. In two years they had doubled and people were anxious, afraid to walk the streets, afraid to go out, afraid to conduct their everyday lives. There was a genuine fear everywhere.

But I'm here to tell you that surge is officially over. Today, shootings in Buffalo are at a 20-year low. The lowest since New York started tracking the numbers. It goes back even further, but this is as far back as we've been tracking numbers. You'll hear better numbers even than that from our local officials here. So, the shootings in Buffalo are at the lowest they’ve been since we've been keeping track, and overall, all violent crime in Buffalo has plummeted to a 10-year low, and the numbers continue to go down. And what does that mean for people in New York? Fewer people going to the emergency room, fewer people who are injured having to go through rehab, losing time from work, the disruption of families, fewer people having to visit funeral homes, fewer people having to deal with property damage or physical assaults, and the streets just feel safer. And I want to talk about what's happening already — we're continuing, in the first three months of this year, shootings with injury are down 84 percent since 2021. I will repeat that. Shootings with injury are down 84 percent since 2021 and down 57 percent just from last year alone.

So the trends are extraordinary, and these are all across our 28 GIVE communities, which are the communities that we give enhanced dollars to to help them with gun violence. And across all those other areas shootings are down 65 percent since 2021 and 20 percent from last year alone. So how did we get here? Unprecedented investments, which I'll talk about, and innovative collaborations and just really saying that this is our priority. Public safety is the foundation of everything. You cannot have a strong economy or a vibrant place to raise families, start a business if people are worried about crime. And so, this is why this is such incredible good news, to let people know that the situation is now under control, it is stable, and you don't have to worry so much about this as you had in the past.

So let's bring me back to the Budget. We're in the budget process, well known, hoping to wrap it up. But a Budget is a statement of our priorities. So when you look at, one of my top priorities is public safety, giving people that sense of security they deserve, it comes down to how much are you putting in your Budget. So for the past four years, I have pushed through groundbreaking investment, more than $3 billion in public safety and police officers on the ground, and I saw what was happening. I tracked the numbers all the time. We had spikes in carjackings and retail theft and shootings, and I knew when I took office, I couldn't just say that's a local problem, let the local governments figure that out, that's their job. I knew that if the state government stepped up in a meaningful way, meaning more dollars and more collaboration, we could do much better, and we did. I have, as I said, a lot of respect for law enforcement, a lot of respect for prosecutors. My husband was a 30-year career prosecutor. He still reflects fondly on how much that job meant to him, to be able to work day in and day out to keep the people of 17 counties safe when he was U.S. Attorney, and I knew that the answer had to start with our District Attorneys. Give them the resources they need to do their jobs, to prosecute crimes and keep repeat offenders from repeating crimes.

Now, I didn't want to just tell the locals to do it on your own. I said, “I'll put more money on the table” and I did. So, Mike Keane knows this, his predecessors know this, I quadrupled the money from the State of New York to District Attorneys from $41 million in 2022 to $183 million now. And I said, “Use this to hire more personnel, buy equipment, train your teams, enhance your training, and also to help our DA’s and local governments invest in crime fighting measures that have really reduced our gun crimes.” And for local law enforcement, our police officers — hotspot policing, focused deterrence and street outreach. And that's why in this Budget, I'm doubling down. I'm going to continue our commitment to reduce crime through these investments, and I'm fighting for record funding for gun violence prevention right now as we speak. I want record funding again because I will never be one to spike the football ever. We have to say, yes, we've made progress, but if we stop these investments now and say we're done, then the criminals are aware. They know that we are taking our foot off the gas, and we start seeing the spikes in crime again, and I will not let that happen. So I want to pass new legislation as well to help crack down on 3D printed guns that people are literally sitting in their kitchens at the table and creating weapons of mass destruction. I want to focus on that, and we have really thoughtful nation-leading legislation on that, and to also ban hand guns that can be easily converted into illegal automatic machine guns.

So I'm not just doubling down on investments, I'm doubling down on changing our laws and on collaborations with local police, state officials and District Attorneys. And also, our network of 11 crime analysis centers, including the one right here in Erie County, is truly, again, nation leading. People are talking about what we're doing so differently in New York, making New York one of the safest big states in America. And again, the one-two punch, investments in collaboration is working and the data is proving it.

I served in local government for a long time. I used to hire police chiefs and police officers and went through the process in selecting a great team in my community. But I also used to think, why isn't Albany helping us more? Why didn't we get more assistance from Albany? And I'm proud that I've been able to change that dynamic and make sure that Western New York and places all across the state that it felt like they had been underinvested in by the State of New York, now have the access to money where, for example right here in Erie County, upgrading law enforcement technology for them, $14 million for that. $3 million for the SNUG program. I truly believe in these grassroots efforts for people, some of them who have been in the system themselves. They are the best advocates and they’ll be able to connect directly with the young people on our streets and help them find a better path, so I’ll always keep those investments strong. And we've had over 17 community projects with $2 million for Project Rise to help them as well. So we're going to continue the efforts. I'll keep the money coming, the money we gave to the DA's office, and I'm proud to say that our investment includes $36 million more for GIVE.

So here we are. Think about where we were just a few short years ago, how much it has changed, but do not take that for granted. The trend could have continued up and up and up and it has not, and that is why I believe that investing $3 billion from our Budget process — we're in the Budget process right now — has made a dramatic difference in saving lives and I'm going to continue that collaboration and make sure that the statistics today are not an aberration, but this is how it's going to be. New York is safer and a better place to raise our families and support our children. So one crime victim is one too many. We're not stopping. But today is a day to celebrate how far we've come.

And I want to thank everyone who's behind me here. All the different individuals from the DA's office and from our local police and all the staff and the professionals and the men and women on the street, literally every day who are the ones who are making these numbers so extraordinary. I thank you. I thank you for making a difference. It makes me so proud to come from a place that has really made a difference in people's lives. And with that, let me bring up our next speaker, our District Attorney, Mike Keane.