(The Center Square) — Gov. Kathy Hochul is distributing grant money to law enforcement agencies across the state as part of a broader effort to crack down on non-fatal shootings that are plaguing many of New York’s smaller cities.
The nearly $867,000 in funding from the Gun Involved Violence Elimination program will be shared by police departments Buffalo, Rochester, Schenectady, Troy and Utica as well as district attorney offices that prosecute cases out of those jurisdictions.
Hochul said the funding will be “critical” to helping law enforcement officials solve non-fatal shooting cases and prevent retaliation in the form of additional gun violence.
“We know that when these crimes are left unsolved, retaliation can turn deadly,” she said in a statement. “This funding provides police and prosecutors the resources they need to solve non-fatal shootings, prevent retaliation and reduce overall gun violence.”
The GIVE initiative, which was unveiled in 2014, supports nearly two dozen police departments in 17 counties that account for more than 80% of the violent crime outside of the New York City area.
Under the program, teams of police, prosecutors and crime analysts work together to solve non-fatal shooting cases when they are reported.
The Hochul administration said the quick-response teams enable authorities to secure crime scenes and gather and preserve evidence immediately, increasing the likelihood of identifying the suspects responsible for non-fatal shootings.
Money from the grant program can be used for anything from overtime costs for additional police patrols, to installing more lighting in neighborhoods with higher level of crime.
A 2017 report by the Giffords Law Center praised the state’s GIVE program as one of several initiatives that should be recognized for helping to reduce firearm violence.
New York law enforcement say small groups of individuals are responsible for the majority of gun violence, but the cases can be hard to solve because of a lack of resources necessary to gather and review evidence. They also face challenges with victims and witnesses, who are often afraid or unwilling to cooperate with investigators.
Rochester Police Chief David Smith said collaboration between police, district attorneys and crime analysts is “instrumental” in closing homicide cases. He said the new grant funding will enhance collaborative efforts “to solve non-fatal shootings and is critical to holding accountable those who bring violence to our community.”
Recent polls show crime remains a major issue for New York voters, with 55% of those surveyed by Siena College in February saying they view it as a “serious problem” they want addressed by the governor and other state leaders.
In her State of the State address, Hochul pledged to crack down on rising crime by diverting more money and resources to law enforcement agencies and state prosecutors who have complained about a lack of funding.
The Democrat has expressed her opposition to the “defund the police” movement that arose in the summer of 2020 amid protests over the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and nationwide protests over police brutality.
“We’re not defunding police,” Hochul said in her remarks in January. “We are really ramping up funding in police, so all that era is over.”
As part of her preliminary state budget, Hochul has proposed $337 million for gun violence reduction efforts across the state, including $84 million for youth employment programs and $18 million to support the state’s crime analysis centers.
The proposed funding includes a doubling of the GIVE program’s annual allocation, bumping it from $18 million to $36 million in the fiscal year that begins April 1.
This article First appeared in the center square
