The Albany Common Council Public Safety Committee recently hosted a session with area law enforcement leaders.
Concerns about public safety have increased since the pandemic, spurred by the city's troubling homicide and gun crime statistics along with debates over state bail reform.
Councilors invited Albany Police Chief Eric Hawkins, Deputy Chief Vincent Foley, Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple, New York State Police Troop G Commander Major Dennis Schager and Craig Tremaroli, special agent in charge of the FBI Albany Field Office. Hawkins began the discussion, saying most homicide and gun crimes involve people who know each another.
“You know, these aren't situations where we have these random robberies that turn into homicides, you know, these aren't individuals going to a store, and they're caught in a barrage of bullets," said Hawkins. "You know, these are fitting a pattern that we're seeing in our city, where individuals who know each other, who have some sort of either a domestic relationship, or some sort of interpersonal relationship that just spirals out of control, and ends up into a homicide.”
Hawkins pointed out that 80% of homicides, locally and nationally, are committed with firearms, adding that "hotspot" policing, anger management, impulse control and conflict resolution are important elements of preventing violence. He says the department is tasked with hiring victim advocates and social workers to serve round the clock as interventionists.
“And when you look at where we are, where we are when gun violence spiked in 2020, in our city, during the height of the pandemic, from that point, to now, we've seen dramatic decreases in the amount of shootings that we've seen in the city. Every single year after the pandemic, we've seen decreases in shooting incidents in our city, to the point where last year, we had a 26% decrease in the amount of shootings, overall shootings that we had in our city from the previous year,” Hawkins said.
The FBI's Tremaroli says the agencies share intelligence throughout Albany County and surrounding jurisdictions.
"The violent crime problem isn't necessarily an Albany problem. We know we have individuals committing criminal conduct activities in Albany, but they don't live in Albany. They're from surrounding counties, and surrounding areas. But what I will tell you is, we're all hip to hip in this fight together. We share intelligence, and we share law enforcement resources. They all have, we see up here local, county and state have full time Task Force officers assigned to our Safe Streets Task Force. And what we do is we work these criminal problems together,” said Tremaroli.
Apple says agencies working together includes retail theft investigations. “Retail theft is just going on everywhere. They're decimating our businesses. And when these businesses close, you know, what's left of your city in your community. So we all need to fight together. Yes, it's a public safety issue as well. But we need to work with DGS we need to work with everybody. We need to help move some of the homeless. That's why we have a homeless shelter in the county,” Apple said.
Public Safety Chair Tom Hoey of the 15th ward tells WAMC officials are reaching out through public education, emphasizing that community members shouldn't fear reporting crime to the police, especially through the anonymous Crimestoppers program.
"Moving forward, we do plan to have a meeting where we bring in clergy, our local clergy members, and I also want to bring in the school superintendent, maybe some school board members to talk about educating our students in school about, you know, the violence that's going on, and how they can help prevent it, and not to get involved with any type of, you know, possession of guns or committing crimes,” said Hoey.
Hoey says a community meeting on violence is planned this spring.
