Mayor Mike Spano at press conference with YPD after shooting
By Dan Murphy
Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano challenged the state legislature in Albany to modify their laws on cash bail and raise the age during a press conference after the shooting of four by a 15-year old.
“The incident took all of maybe five seconds, and we have five people shot and one person dead,” Spano said. “Even one crime, even one shooting, is too much for any one of us to bear—especially the family of that 20-year-old who is dealing with the loss of their child today.”
People want to know who to blame—go to the state Legislature,” Spano said. “They have succeeded in taking the handcuffs off the bad guys and putting them on law enforcement and the judges. And we can blame the democrats at home, we can blame the Republicans in Washington for their inability to do the things that will allow law enforcement to take illegal guns off the streets. How does a 15-year-old end up with a gun like that?”
After the shooting, Yonkers police increased their presence with cops on the street and a command center where the shooting took place on Elm Street.
“We have cameras, uniformed officers, plainclothes officers and all kinds of police activity here. So, for those who might be thinking about retaliation, they may want to think again.”
“Look, I’ve been mayor now for 15 years, and I spent 20 years in the state Legislature, so I get it,” Spano said. “We do things like Raise the Age, and there were a lot of positives to raising the age. There were reasons for cash bail reform. But there was never a look back to say, ‘You know what? Where did we go too far? How can we change these laws so we’re not handcuffing law enforcement and we’re not handcuffing our judges?’ That’s what I’m concerned about.”
“On one hand, we are being weak on people who commit crimes with guns. On the other hand, look at Congress and its inability to keep guns from being trafficked into our communities,” he said. “You also have to blame Congress because they will not address the issue. If they don’t address it, we will continue to see carnage like this in our communities.”
“One murder is too many,” Spano said. “We have a family that is going to mourn the loss of a 20-year-old because some 15-year-old got his hands on a gun.”
Mayor Spano called on state legislative leaders, one of whom is Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, from Yonkers, to “start listening to Mayors.”
“The mayors are the generals on the front lines of the wars over things like this that are happening in our communities. When they make changes—whether at the federal or state level—they usually do so without consulting us or talking to us about it.”
“Go back to bail reform. It happened in a budget bill, and we had no input on it—none whatsoever,” Spano said. “Neither did law enforcement, and neither did the district attorneys. It was passed in a budget bill without their input, and a call like that usually doesn’t work.”