MAYOR DE BLASIO on COVID-19 and Where the City Stands Tuesday June 16, 2020

  Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good morning, everybody. We're at a moment in history in this city, in this nation, where change is not optional, change must come. My message today is, I don't think we, any one of us, have the option of assuming what can't happen. We have to make things happen, and that's what this city is capable of, that's what we have shown time and again. It is a moment that demands change. It is required of us. We have it within our grasp. Look, there's a lot of pain. There's a lot of anguish. There's a lot of fear. There's a lot of confusion. I understand that all those things may make people feel hopeless, but I've also seen all of those feelings, all of those challenges turn into action. I've seen it. I've seen it happen in our time in this city, and now it is happening again.

Yesterday, a very powerful announcement by the NYPD. Yesterday, an announcement that the decision to end the work of the plain clothes unit and change to a more modern community-based approach. We keep hearing voices of the community. We keep hearing voices from the young people who are our future, like those young people I've met in Southeast Queens on Saturday who understand their value, and they want the world around them to see their value too. They want to be respected. They want to be heard. Everyone needs safety. That is a foundation for all of us, but safety has to be done with the people of our neighborhoods. So, the decision, really crucial decision to disband that unit and move us forward. Deepening neighborhood policing, deepening the connection and the communication between our police and the people of our communities. That is a signature day for the city, that change can happen.

When I was in Southeast Queens, I heard those voices of young people. I saw the powerful work of the Crisis Management System. I saw what people were doing in the Cure Violence movement. Community people solving community problems, people stopping violence before it happened, uplifting young people, rather than denigrating them. I heard from young people how often they felt they were not seen by our society by our government, by our police. I tell you over and over again, I have seen the difference of neighborhood policing versus what we had before, which was aggressive and punitive and arrest oriented. I've seen the difference of not choosing to arrest. What it means that 180,000 fewer people were arrested in 2019 compared to 2013. I've seen the difference of ending broken policies like stop and frisk and engaging people instead in a real dialogue, I've seen what it means to decarcerate, to have now the lowest jail population since World War II in the city of New York. The lowest rates of incarceration of any big city in America. All of these things are example of real change that the people demanded and that was achieved. What we've seen just in the last week, the extraordinary actions by the State Legislature to end the 50-a law that withheld the kind of transparency we needed to give people trust in policing the actions. We have taken that commitment to shift funding, and we’re going to do that in the next two weeks in our budget, shifting funding from the NYPD to youth services, to social services, to the things that actually go at the root cause of so many of the problems. 

Change must come in everything we do, and today I announce another step forward. Another step for transparency. Another step that will help to build trust between the people and the NYPD. Another step toward a more accountable system. Look, we recognize the power of body worn cameras, but body worn cameras are only as powerful as the transparency that comes with them. After we retrained all our police officers early on in this administration, after we focused on neighborhood policing and de-escalation, we then focused on the power of transparency with body worn cameras. We've spread them out, 24,000 now in our police force. By far the biggest body worn camera initiative in the country, but it only works if people see accountability, see results from the presence of those cameras. We have to get to the day where people see the police officer there to protect them and have faith. The faith has to be mutual. That's a day when everyone in the society counts, and to do that, we need more transparency and more accountability.

So, today, we announced a new policy related to the disclosure of body worn camera footage. Previously disclosure had been solely at the discretion of the commissioner and for very narrow purposes, the new policy effective immediately, all video and audio footage of incidents must be released within 30 days. If they meet one of the three criteria I'll name now. When an officer discharges their firearm that hit someone or could hit someone. When an officer discharged the taser in a way that results in the death or of an individual or substantial bodily harm. And when an officer's use of force results in death or great bodily harm. In those cases, the obligation will be for the NYPD to release all pertinent video and audio footage within 30 days. And I want everyone to understand that this is a good thing for everyone involved. We hope to never have these kinds of incidents to have to release this footage on obviously, or very, very rarely in the case of when an officer needs to use their weapon. And gun discharges have gone down steadily. And that's important to recognize, even as there's anger and pain, that retraining and de-escalation a different approach to neighborhood policing has correlated with a great decrease in gun discharges and adversarial situations, and we want to see that constantly go down. But when one of these three criteria is met. It is crucial that the information comes out promptly and that people have faith it will come out, and will come out objectively. That creates trust. That creates accountability. That says to the many, many good officers that they know the whole truth will come out from what they saw from their literal perspective. And it says to any officer who doesn't yet fully understand their responsibilities, that they will be held accountable and there will be consequences. The footage will be made available online for the public. First will be shown to family members involved, but ultimately to the public as a whole. And when people see this kind of transparency, it will build trust, and it's one step it's another step. Yesterday, it was a step, today is another step, there is much more to come in the weeks ahead.

We are deep, deep in this battle, and I've said many times, my deep appreciation to all of you for what you've done to help move us forward and we continue to move forward. But the fact that we've come so far should never allow us to become complacent or to feel for a moment that can't be a resurgence because we know there can be, we have seen such troubling reality in other cities and States that somehow took their guard down or move too quickly, we have that very much in our mind. And so, we're going to stay focused, we're going to stay focused on social distancing on face coverings on all of the things that have worked. And we now have a whole new reality with our Test and Trace Corp – this is something we talked about back in April – we said it would be built in May and in June it has come alive and come alive on a huge, huge scale. In a moment you're going to hear from Dr. Ted Long and his team at Test and Trace are doing an amazing job building out this capacity rapidly in a way we've never seen before in this city's history. Testing has finally starting to reach the kind of numbers we want to see, not our perfect numbers, but a hell of a lot more than we had before. The City of New York alone is now sponsoring about 20,000 tests a day, when you add in all the other providers were over 30,000, we now can predict that we will be at 50,000 tests per day by early July and just a month. Way ahead of schedule, and that's such powerful news. 50,000 people per day will be tested by the beginning of July, that is a third of a million people a week. It's an extraordinary step forward. Our tracer core now tracking approximately 4,300 cases just in the last days that they've been up and running. In this summer, they will be building out to the potential to monitor a quarter million New Yorkers. That is the level we're going to reach, a quarter million people who will need help and support to help them through this disease, to keep all the rest of us safe as well.

Now, to remind everyone that anyone who needs a test or anyone who is symptomatic and needs help, or anyone who needs to get that opportunity to safely separate, whether it's hotel or staying at home with a lot of support, there's a number you can call if you need that help and support. And it's 844-4NYC, 844-4NYC. That number has received over a hundred thousand calls from New Yorkers, seeking health advice from a clinician, it's been a huge success. That's the number to call when you need to figure out what to do, if you've tested positive or you're symptomatic, and you want to make sure you don't spread the disease to your family or anyone else call that number and help will be available to you immediately.

So, with these new tools, I have confidence in our ability to keep fighting back this virus. We're all in it together to say the least, but we have now what we need to keep this fight going and here to tell you more of the details, the executive director of Test and Trace Corps, Dr. Ted Long.

Executive Director Dr. Ted Long, Test and Trace Corps: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, the mission of the Test and Trace Corp, is to prevent the spread of the coronavirus across New York City. Now, this starts with identifying cases or people newly diagnosed with coronavirus. We then ask them to identify contacts or people that cases may have exposed to the coronavirus since starting the Test and Trace corp. program on June 1st, just two weeks ago, we've identified more than 5,000 cases or people newly diagnosed with the coronavirus. Of those 15 percent, we had challenge, we didn't have a phone number for them. However, for everybody that we did have a phone number for all of those cases, we have now reached 94 percent of them of that 94 percent that we've reached more than 1,800 of these cases have shared with us contacts or people they may have exposed to the coronavirus. That's yielded us a list of more than 4,000 contacts across New York City. Now we had the same challenge with that list of 4,000 contacts where 36 percent of them, we didn't have a phone number for yet. However, for those that we did have a phone number for we've reached more than 80 percent of them. And of that more than 80 percent, there was a subset more than 300 people that when we were talking to them on the phone, they shared with us that they were actively symptomatic and likely contagious with the coronavirus. In that moment, we were able to get them to isolate or quarantine to keep their families and their neighbors safe, and we were able to get them all of the resources that they needed to get through this. To date, since the program went live on June 1st, as the mayor said, we've monitored more than 4,200 New Yorkers, that's 65 percent of all of our cases and contacts put together. Of that, 65 percent of our cases in contact, more than a thousand of them, when we were talking to them on the phone, told us they needed help. That help was in the form of food delivery, help with their medications. And for each of them, we've paired them up with a resource navigator and we've given them the help that they need to get their families and their neighbors through this. In addition to that, 40 New Yorkers have arrived at our hotels after telling us that they couldn't safely separate home and they needed even more help. And we with open arms have brought them to our hotels.

I'm going to say one more thing today, and this is very important. One of the key reasons why our program has been so successful so early on is that more than half of all of our tracers, all of our 3000 working tracers are people from our hardest hit communities across New York City, making this a local effort with New Yorkers in our communities, serving our communities. I'm pleased to announce today that we're awarding $4 million to community-based organizations to join us in the fight against the coronavirus and to drive this work forward together. Thank you.

Mayor: Thank you so much, Ted. And congratulations to you and your team, really extraordinary work. And everyone, this work has been done about two weeks, the last two weeks of getting this effort up and running on a vast scale, connecting with all those people, building out constantly, absolutely impressive work, and a lot more to come, as you heard. Let me talk about the daily indicator’s indicator, number one, daily numbers, admitted to hospitals for suspected COVID-19 that threshold is 200 patients and today's report 52. Indicator number two daily number of people in health and hospitals, ICU threshold of 375, today's report 334 and indicator number three, number of people tested citywide or positive for COVID-19 threshold of 15 percent today, an excellent number – two percent. That is the kind of number of we are so proud of, cause that all indicates what you have done and what hard work every New Yorker has put themselves to, to get to this point. So again, congratulations, these are the kind of indicators we want to see more and more of as we get closer and closer to phase two, these are the kind of results that are going to get us there, and beyond

MAYOR DE BLASIO on COVID-19 and the State of the City June 8, 2020

We are going to put our Editorial Comment at the beginning today..

No Mayor de Blasio - what the Coronavirus taught us was that in six and a half years of the de Blasio administration all you did was continue with the status quo that existed from the previous mayor who bought his elections.

  Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good morning, everybody. Yesterday was a very important day in this city, as hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers came back to work. And we have been through such a fight against the coronavirus it has been such a difficult time in this city, but we saw yesterday the beginning of the comeback of New York City. Now, we have to be clear, we are not just trying to get people back to work. We are not just trying to return to the status quo that existed before the coronavirus. The corona virus taught us extraordinarily painful, powerful lessons about disparity, about the lack of equality in this city. So, our clear mission is to not just restart, not just recover, but renew this city. We must build a different New York City as we move forward. And that is where the taskforce for racial inclusion and equity comes in. This task force was named, specifically people who are leaders in city government right now. People of color who are leading city agencies, playing a crucial role so that we could do work right now to address disparity. I named the task force 45 days ago, it was with the got.al of doing work that would have a tangible and immediate impac Already, the work of this taskforce has led to the decision to shift resources from the NYPD to youth services and social services. It has led to the decision to move the enforcement of street vending away from the NYPD. It has led to a decision to address health care issues, such as the creation of mobile testing in the hardest hit communities all around the city. But now there's more to do immediately, particularly on the disparities in health care, which are so sharp and so real. And were the foundation of why the coronavirus did such horrific damage in communities of color.

We have to address the underlying reality of health care being a human right. And that is why we are guaranteeing health care for every New York citizen, every New York person, regardless of documentation status. How many people never got physical health care, and lord knows, never got mental health care. How many people just didn't even have a doctor they could turn to what we made clear with a decision a year and a half ago to move to guaranteed health care for all New Yorkers that we had to lead the way, we had to show that everyone will get health care, regardless of income, regardless of whether they have insurance or not, regardless of documentation status, if you are a New Yorker, you deserve health care.

And so, New York City created NYC Care and it began in August, 2019 in the Bronx, continued January of this year in Brooklyn and Staten Island. Tens of thousands of people now have their own doctor for the first time. For many in the first time in their lives, a doctor, a primary care doctor, they could turn to. Pay only what they could afford. If they could afford nothing, that doctor was still there for them. But the task force looked at the situation and said, even though that was a powerful start, we need to go farther. The task force called for NYC Care to be expanded rapidly in Queens and Manhattan, four months ahead of schedule so we could reach 55,000 more New Yorkers. It means surgery, dental care, eye care, women's health, affordable medications. Again, no one charged more than they could pay. That is a foundation, but where we need to go much farther is in the area of mental health, because we have seen what happens in a society that does not provide mental health care. I was painfully reminded of it as I joined members of the cure violence movement a week ago at Queensbridge Houses, largest public housing development in New York City. I talked to residents one after another, about the pain that they had experienced in the coronavirus crisis. And for so many, it was the pain of losing a loved one. It was the pain of not being able to mourn. It was the sense of injustice, and that all added up for so many people to create anxiety and depression, to bear down on them, to create a mental health crisis within the crisis. We need to help make sure that people get the mental health care they need. And the task force on racial inclusion and equity is focused on what we can do right now. 

 We talked about the culture of policing that has to change. We talked about how pervasive the problems were, but it was not a hopeless conversation, in the end a hopeful conversation, because the leaders and activists who gathered believe the change could happen, and had specific ideas for change.  Tucker – Mike Tucker lost his own son to police violence, and became one of the city's real true, authentic leaders against gun violence, founded lay down – excuse me, Lay the Guns Down. The organization Lay the Guns Down has done extraordinary work to try and create progress and healing and a different reality in our streets. Anthony Bedford, President and cofounder of Brooklyn Chapter of Black Lives Matter, served in the United States Marine Corps, came back to his community, devoted to change has emerged as a powerful voice of justice, a leader organizing the peaceful protest for change, that have made such an impact on this City. Iesha Sekou, who will speak for the group of activists gathered, Iesha is the CEO of Street Corner Resources, a leading cure violence organization does extraordinary work engaging young people, helping them to reach their amazing potential, helping to protect them. And I've had many opportunities to talk to Iesha and see her work over the years, I have tremendous admiration for her. And one of the things I said during our State of the City address really was based on the work of Iesha and her colleagues who have done amazing, amazing, just beautiful work to nurture our young people. I said, in that speech, our kids don't need to be policed, they need to be reached. And Iesha, and so many other good people in cure violence and community-based organizations are reaching our young people in a positive way. Gwen Carr was at our meeting at Gracie Mansion, mother of Eric Garner, one of the most prominent voices for justice in the city and in this nation – a conscience who has turned pain in the purpose of ever that phrase has been made real and human that's in the person of Gwen Carr, someone I admire someone I feel shows the best in all of us. Gwen is in Houston today as part of one of the recognitions of the life of George Floyd here representing her is Bishop Evans, cousin of Eric Garner. And Bishop, we thank you for joining us in this important moment.

I spoke to a Speaker, Carl Heastie and Majority Leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins over the weekend. The package of— reformed the reforms that they put together in Albany are profoundly important for the future of this City, this state, this nation, particularly the reforms of the 58 law that have held back transparency that the law that has for years stood in the way of transparency, the reforms that are needed to fix it. For so many years, including as recently as February, when I testified in Albany, I have been calling for this law to be either changed or repealed, replaced, whatever way you look at it to get rid of a broken law that was standing in the way of transparency and harming the relationship between police and community, that is finally happening after years and years and years, that is finally happening. That means we're going to be able to restore trust by showing very transparency, what’s happening in the discipline process in the NYPD and the actions that we have taken this city based on the work of the task force on racial inclusion and equity, shifting funding from the NYPD to use services that will be formalized in the next few weeks in the city budget, the move to take away vendor enforcement, street vendor enforcement from NYPD, that will be acted on immediately. And we'll look at other ways to put civilians forward, wherever possible, the way that improves the level of peace and understanding of this community while keeping people safe at the same time. And then the community ambassadors we discussed just a few days ago, we hired within the NYPD to bring the voices of communities forward, to create more of a flow of both information and insight and a better way of doing things that need to be heard deeply within the NYPD. Those are just beginnings, there is so much more to do, and our city council is doing some very, very important work now. I have had a discussion with the Black, Latino, Asian Caucus of the City Council, I want to thank them for their leadership over these last weeks. 

Today, the City Council is hearing four bills, a chokehold band for the NYPD a bill that will affirm every individual's right to record their interactions with police officers, a bill, to ensure that all police shield numbers and rank designations are visible to members of the public and a bill to ensure there will be early intervention on any officers who need more training, more monitoring, anything that will adjust the course of their career to make sure that it reflects the values of this City. I want to affirm that I broadly support all of these bills, there are some specific details being worked through, but I'm confident that we will work them through, and we'll be able to move forward together with the City Council on all four of these bills.

Finally, everything that we're dealing with is against the backdrop of this battle against the coronavirus. The pain that people are feeling is not only about the injustices that have been pervading relationship between police and community. The reality of structural racism in this country, the reality of an economy that was fundamentally based on income inequality; all of that existed before the coronavirus and then the coronavirus took such a horrible toll on communities of color, one injustice piled upon the next and the frustration is so deep. We have so much to do, but remember we have to do it while fighting back the coronavirus to save lives in all communities, but also to take away that which has created so much additional injustice and start the framework for that fair recovery that we must have in this city. So, fighting the coronavirus in every way possible is essential to doing the work of justice. Right now, we saw an extraordinary moment restarting yesterday and the emergence of our Test and Trace Corps on a scale never before seen in the United States of America; now, thousands of tracers out there, right this moment, talking to the people in New York City. Making sure that anyone who tests positive - it's followed up on - their contacts are traced. Those people get the support they need; those people get the testing they need. If they need to safely separate from others, all the support is there. This is going to change the trajectory of the coronavirus in New York City, but every single day, we're going to watch what happens with this disease. We're going to see if our efforts are working, we're going to need every New Yorker to be a part of it if we're going to fight it back. 

So, let's talk about the indicators and thresholds today. Number one, the daily number of people admitted to hospitals for suspected COVID-19, that threshold is 200 and today we are well within that threshold at 52 patients. Second, daily number of people in Health + Hospitals ICUs - that threshold is 375, we're well within that threshold again today at 337. And this last one is unbelievably good news and it doesn't mean it's always going to be like this and it doesn't mean we don't need to keep fighting because we do, but I'm so proud of New Yorkers, you have earned this one; the percentage of people tested citywide who are positive for COVID-19 as more and more and more testing - well, over 30,000 tests a day now happening in New York City – that threshold is 15 percent, for the first time since the beginning of this crisis. Today's report only one percent, only one percent of those tested, tested positive for COVID-19. That is an amazing statement on what all of you have achieved; all of you have done. Let's keep clinging to that progress. Let's build upon it. Let's beat back this disease. Everybody, work together, work with the Test and Trace Corp, work with your neighbors. Every time you keep that face mask on, every time you stay home when you can, every time you practice social distancing, you're beating back this disease. But look at that one percent only, an extraordinary day from New York City.

MAYOR DE BLASIO on COVID-19 and the State of the City - June 8, 2020

  Mayor Bill de Blasio: Well, it is a very beautiful day today. It's a beautiful day out, but it's also a beautiful day for this city. This is a powerful day – day 100 of the coronavirus crisis and it is the day that we start to liberate ourselves from this disease, the day we move forward. Phase one of the restart begins today in New York City and everyone, all New Yorkers, should be proud that you got us to this day. This was a lot of hard work. Everyone who stayed home, everyone who was socially distanced, everyone who put on those face coverings – you got us to this day and it's a day to celebrate hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers coming back to work today, just the beginning of the restart. But it is literally because of every single New Yorker who worked so hard to get us here.

We're here in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The Brooklyn Navy Yard is such a powerful place in the history of this city. It is a place of working people. It's a place where people fought for their country in tough times. It's a place where things have been created against the odds. And here again, the Brooklyn Navy Yard was a heroic place in the fight against the coronavirus. Here in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, New Yorkers came together to create PPEs, to build things and produce things that weren't made in New York City just a few months ago, but they made them here to save the lives of their fellow New Yorkers. So, this is a great place to be today as we start the next chapter.

I want to thank all my colleagues from the administration who are here, who've all worked so hard through this fight. And every one of us has been together saying we knew we would get to this day, it would take a lot of work, but we are finally here. Now, what comes back today? Construction, manufacturing, wholesale, and nonessential retail now can do curbside and in-store pickup. And we're looking forward to the day in a few weeks where they can go back to their normal operations. Thousands of people are back to work here at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. This is a center of manufacturing, including some of the most dynamic companies in New York City, right here. Thousands are coming back to work here today. Remember hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers overall, coming back today to work in the five boroughs.

Now, as we begin the restart, it will not be business as usual. There's work to be done. We have to help businesses to do this right. We're not only going to do inspections and make sure they’re doing the right thing, we're going to help them do the right thing with the free face coverings, with the guides, with the help lines. We're going to help make sure working people are safe because nothing is more important than protecting the health and safety of New Yorkers. So, for every working person coming back to work today, we will watch out for you. And if you see something wrong, we want to make sure it is addressed immediately. 

But we also know that for the economy to restart people have to be able to get to those jobs. And this crisis has made that harder in so many ways. So, we have some announcements today that I hope will start to lighten the burden and help move us forward and help move New Yorkers around easier and easier. First of all, I announce today, 20 new miles of busways and bus lanes, 20 new miles. These 20 new miles of busways and bus lanes are going to help over three-quarters of a million New Yorkers to get around more easily – 750,000 New Yorkers will have a faster way to work, more frequent service, less crowding. Look, more service equals less crowding equals more health and safety. That's what we want to achieve. There will be five new busways in New York City. Just like the success we've seen on 14th Street, Manhattan, we're going to add five new busways. They will be launching on an urgent basis. I want to see this happen as quickly as possible because we need the help now given the crisis we're in. We have to make it easier for people to get around. They will launch between June and October. 

And then on top of that, four new bus lanes with signage and markings to make it possible for those bus lanes to achieve the goals we've seen. Every time we expedite bus service, more and more people use the buses, more and more people feel it's the right way to go. They don't need their cars. They can take mass transit. And, again, more frequency equals more safety too. These will be launching between June and August, starting this month on East 14th Street in Manhattan and 149th Street in the Bronx. And an important point, the 14th Street Busway, this has been a success by every measure. I said, we're going to do it, we're going to see if it works, we're going to see, do people ride the bus more? Does the bus go faster? Does it have any negative impact on the surrounding streets? And the jury is back. The answer is, it is a clear success. We are making the 14th Street Busway permanent.

Now let's turn to the subways. We have been talking to the MTA now over the last week or two, a lot of forward motion. I thank the MTA for increasing the service and for realizing how important it is to do things like have hand sanitizer in every station. We want to see more and more support for people who are using the subways, want to see the same kind of markings, the same kind of distance markers to help people know where to be. But we're going to help the MTA. We are sending approximately 800 school safety agents who will be in stations, educating New Yorkers, giving out those free face coverings, helping people to feel comfortable when they take that subway ride, that it’s going to be safe. And we're going to keep doing this work with the MTA throughout.

Now, I've got a few other things to talk about, and I think we're trying to find the location of our Commissioner because there was a little situation with his drive over. So, what I'll do is I'll finish everything I got. And when he comes in, he's going to speak, okay. Take a different topic now, one I always say brings up passion in New Yorkers – Alternate Side Parking. We have, obviously, this incredibly important moment where we're restarting. We want to try and make things as easy as possible for people. So, we are suspending Alternate Side Parking for two more weeks. Alternate Side Parking is suspended today through Sunday, June 21st. We'll be reassessing in the meantime whether to bring it back or not.

So, there's a lot to do. There's a lot to do, but we are moving forward in this city. Everyone should be proud of the fact we're moving forward. Let's get this next part, right so we can move forward even more. And this is an appropriate time to talk about our indicators and thresholds. And the news today is very good. So, this is such an important day for the city. I'm happy to say we also have the health data to continue to give us hope that things are moving in the right direction. Let's go over the indicators today. First, the daily number of people admitted to hospitals for suspected COVID-19, that threshold again, 200 patients. We are well under it today at 67 patients. Second, daily number of people in Health + Hospitals ICUs, that threshold is 375 – today, a good number, continues to go down, 326. And number three, percentage of people tested citywide who are positive, tested positive for COVID-19. That threshold is 15 percent. This is the biggest measure in terms of showing us where things really are at in this city, how things are going in this city, the lowest number we have seen – thank you – the lowest number we have seen – three percent. So that is a great, great sign. But, again, we know that the reopening means more and more people will be close to each other. We need to get it right. So, if we would like reopening, we got to stick with it and make sure we do it right so we can get to the next phase.

MAYOR DE BLASIO on COVID-19 and the State of the City - June 7, 2020

  Mayor Bill de Blasio: Yesterday, we had a powerful expression of peaceful protests all over New York City. People speaking up, calling for change, calling for a different approach to the work of this society – doing it peacefully, doing it passionately. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers coming out, working for a better city, a better nation. I want to thank everybody who has expressed their views peacefully, who has worked for change in this long, complex week in this city, in this nation. I can tell you it is making a huge difference. 

It was peaceful throughout the day, the entire day in the entire city related to the protests. Again, tens of thousands of New Yorkers participating. There were four arrests and 24 summonses in the entire day. We've had five days in a row, thank God, where we see peaceful protests predominating an end to the property damage we saw earlier in the week, which has no place in this city. Because we got, each day, a better and better situation, more and more peaceful protesters coming out, better situation overall each day, fewer and fewer arrests, I made the decision to end the curfew. And honestly, I hope it's the last time we will ever need a curfew in New York City. So, the curfew has ended. Tomorrow something very, very important happens in the city, the beginning of phase one, the restart of the city, the restart of our economy, the restart of the people's livelihoods, and we should all feel that this is a moment that every New Yorker should celebrate as our achievement together, your achievement, because you did the hard work to fight back the coronavirus so we could get to phase one and tomorrow morning will be a very important day in the history of this city. 

Now this week has been a very long week, a tough week in many ways, a powerful, meaningful week as well for sure, a week where people called for change, and change will happen. And we'll talk about that today, but I first want to talk about the week and the reality we faced. Again, a thank you to the tens of thousands of peaceful protesters, a thank you to the tens and thousands of members of the NYPD who protected that right to peaceful protest. Everyone worked hard. You can always talk about the exceptions and the problems and we will, but overall, it is important to say thank you to the men and women of the NYPD who worked to protect people's democratic rights and their safety.

Now, I had four fundamental ideas, fundamental standards that I've been holding throughout this week and we've had to make decisions based on many, many factors. Obviously paramount was protecting the right to peaceful protest and hearing the voices of our community calling for change. But the four things I was focused on as the leader of this city, as the steward of this city, was avoiding the loss of life across the board, avoiding serious injury to anyone and everyone involved, whether they be protester or police officer or anyone in this city, avoiding property damage, never allowing a repeat of what we saw so troublingly at the beginning of the week, and something I've talked about many times, making sure that the National Guard did not come into New York City, which I think would have caused much greater problems and much greater potential for misunderstanding and inadvertent violence. I made clear throughout the week that the NYPD was going to use a restrained approach. I know there are deep concerns about specific situations, and I respect that. But in this city, the NYPD did not use many of the approaches that were used in other cities. In this city, the NYPD avoided the use of some of the policing tactics, the more militarized policing tactics that we've seen around this country that I oppose and I think don't have any place in New York City. And again, it was crucial to keep out a military presence in the National Guard. And I'm happy to say that we all work together in this city to avoid that situation. 

Now, the real work begins in this city. And to say to those who protested, ‘I hear you,’ is simply not enough. I do hear you. I feel it deeply. I literally heard the protest. I saw them. I went all over the city watching very, very up close, but hearing is just the beginning. There has to be action. So, people have to see deeds. They have to see change. First, we have to address the issue of officer accountability – 36,000 members of the police force, the vast majority of whom do the right thing every day, answer a noble calling, keep us safe, and a few who do the wrong thing – and those few have to experience consequences, and we have to see it. We have to feel it. We have to know it's real. It takes, in New York City, too long for there to be accountability for officers who do the wrong thing. That is something we can and must change. That is a tradition that must change. You are starting to see that change. It is not enough yet. I want to be clear, but you're starting to see it even in the first days of this protest. And it might have been the lost in the first days of this protest, the decision by Commissioner Shea to move on additional discipline, a discipline trial, for officers involved in that very troubling incident in the Lower East Side a few weeks ago, that trial will proceed shortly, but also the announcement by the Commissioner just a day or so ago regarding some of the incidents that happened this week.

And I want to make very clear. I'm going to talk about, very quickly, a few of the incidents, there are more under investigation. Each investigation will follow the facts and where discipline is needed, it will occur. Last Friday an officer in Brooklyn shoved a woman to the ground, shoved a protester to the ground in a very inappropriate fashion, in a dangerous fashion. That officer has been suspended without pay, further disciplinary action will commence. Last Saturday, an officer pulled down the face covering of a protester and sprayed pepper spray at them. That officer has been suspended without pay, further disciplinary action will commence. There was an NYPD supervisor, a senior level officer, who was supposed to be supervising the officer who pushed the woman to the ground and did not. That supervisor has been reassigned and further disciplinary action will commence. Those are three examples. There are more investigations underway, both within the NYPD and then the independent review being done by our Corporation Counsel and our Commissioner for Investigations, and, of course, the State Attorney General's review as well.

But most importantly, each and every incident that is brought to the attention of the NYPD and the Civilian Complaint Review Board will be investigated. I want to see where it is appropriate that there be disciplinary action that it happens swiftly. I want the public to see it, know it, and have confidence in the disciplinary process of the NYPD. That is one type of change we have to make, but there are much bigger, deeper reforms that have to happen beyond that. And this is directly related to the disparities that are so painfully evident in the city and the disparities that were made so clear by the coronavirus. 

When we published the information, and this city was one of the ones to be most transparent and blunt about the fact that there were profound disparities in the coronavirus crisis, we said that we would do a number of things differently. One of the things I did was to name a task force of City government leaders, the Task Force on Racial Equity and Inclusion, to immediately determine steps that the City government must take to start addressing disparities right now. There are many bigger things we must do over the next 18 months of this administration, but my charge to this task force was, figure out what could happen right now and then in the next 18 months ahead, continue that work. You're going to hear from the leaders of the task force, everything that we're going to talk about today, the announcements we're making today directly related to their work. And then you'll be hearing much more from them in the next week or two on issues beyond policing, a whole set of specific changes that will be made to address disparities in terms of economics, health care, and other issues.

Now, let's start with the things we're going to do right away. And I want to be clear that in this administration, we have focused on young people. We focused on young people with initiatives like pre-K and 3-K. We focused on young people with afterschool for free for every middle school child. We focused on young people with beacon programs, cornerstone programs, so many initiatives to reach young people, and with close cooperation and partnership with the City Council to focus on summer youth employment, which has been roiled this year by the coronavirus. We need to do a lot more for our young people. At the time of my State of the City address in February, a time that seems a long time ago, we talked about adding support for our young people. We talked about Commissioner Shea’s new focus on NYPD officers working with young people to address their concerns and issues, to help them rather than simply deal with a problem after it's already begun, to address it at the beginning, at the root. I said in our State of the City speech, “Our young people don't need to be policed, they need to be reached.” And that is the spirit of the reforms we're going to talk about today and beyond. 

Yesterday, I was in Southeast Queens at Deliverance Baptist Church in Cambria Heights. I had the opportunity to talk to community members, and I was very, very struck by a conversation, a lengthy conversation, with two young African American men, Paul and Benjamin. And they talked about their experience and they talked about their community and, yes, they want their community to be safe and yes, they understand the jobs of police officers are difficult, but they just wanted things to be different. They wanted a different attitude. They wanted a different respect. They wanted their personhood and their value to be seen and felt by every single police officer and by our society as a whole. And they are correct. That's what we must do. That is a good example of why when I turned to our task force and said, what should we do – and we talked over these last few days and we had a series of meetings – the task force said it was important to address, on a budget level, the need to focus more on our young people, the need to make a clear statement that our investments in our young people are our future. Policing matters for sure, but the investments in our youth are foundational. I further had lengthy conversations with the Black, Latino, and Asian Caucus of the New York City Council. I want to thank the co-chairs of that caucus, Council Member Daneek Miller and Council Member Adrienne Adams. I was with Council Member Miller at that church in Cambria Heights yesterday. And it was a very moving experience.

And the Black, Latino, Asian Caucus has called repeatedly for reconsideration of priorities. Now we're about to go into a budget process over these next few weeks to make the final decisions on the City budget. But I want to make a statement of principle right now that based on the suggestions of the caucus, based on the work of the task force, that we will be moving funding from the NYPD to youth initiatives and social services. The details will be worked out in the budget process in the weeks ahead, but I want people to understand that we are committed to shifting resources to ensure that the focus is on our young people. And I also will affirm while doing that, we will only do it in a way that we are certain continues to ensure that this city will be safe. 

Now, the second point, something we've talked about for a long time, we finally see action on, you know, for years I have said we could do so much more to create trust between community and police if we got support from Albany in changing State law to allow more transparency in the police disciplinary process, the 50-a law that has stood in the way of transparency. I've had three police commissioners, all three police commissioners have called for change in that law. There's always going to be differences on specific wording and specific ideas, but one thing that has been absolutely consistent, I felt it, my commissioners have felt it, that the current 50-a law is broken and stands in the way of improving trust between police and community. I'm waiting to see the final wording that has just been issued in Albany by the Legislature of the bill that they will review in the next few days. But based on what I've seen so far, I want to support that legislation clearly, and what the Legislature is looking to do, I hope they will do it as early as Monday or Tuesday, is take away the provisions in 50-a that held back transparency while still protecting the valid security, personal information of our police officers. That is the right direction. I commend the Legislature. I call on them to get this done this week. Let's make 50-a, as we knew it, a thing of the past so we can have transparency in our disciplinary process and give the public confidence. 

Now, one of the things that our task force has talked about is the very important question of what the NYPD should be working on and what it shouldn't be working on, what type of enforcement is only the type of thing that fits the NYPD, obviously, when it comes to fighting crime, but then there's other types of enforcement that may not work in today's society the same way where we need to make bigger, real change. The task force is going to be working on this issue, going forward, working with the whole administration to determine which areas that change should come in. But one that we can announce today is in the area of street vendor enforcement. Street vendor enforcement should no longer be the responsibility of the NYPD. A civilian agency should handle that. And the street vendors, it's an area that New Yorkers feel passionately about, it is an example, what street vendors do, of so many people creating their own business, so many people trying to experience some version of that American dream that often feels elusive lately, but still is there. For so many people of color, for so many immigrants street vending is their opportunity to move forward. They should not have to engage the NYPD as they're trying to make their livelihoods. Civilian agencies can work on proper enforcement and that's what we'll do going forward. 

Finally, one of the things the task force heard – and you'll hear from the First Lady and Deputy Mayor Perea-Henze in just a moment on their work and as well on the line with us, we have Deputy Mayor Thompson and the Executive Director of our task force, Administrator Grace Bonilla – one of the things they heard as they reached out to stakeholders and communities of color all over the city, was they heard people wanted to believe and know and feel that their voices were being heard. And so we will take an action in the NYPD at the patrol borough level, we will hire community ambassadors, people from the community, civilians, deeply steeped in their communities with the ability to bring the concerns of the community to the highest levels of NYPD, to bring back answers including on the status of disciplinary cases and changes in policing that need to be done to allow better policing, fairer policing, to make sure there's a truer deep connection between police and community. It compliments all we've done with neighborhood policing but it’s another step that we need to take.

MAYOR DE BLASIO on Protests and COVID-19 - June 5, 2020

  Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good morning, everybody. Yesterday afternoon, my wife Chirlane and I went to a very moving memorial. As the funeral of George Floyd was beginning. People gathered in Brooklyn to honor George Floyd, to honor his life, his memory, to not let him have died in vain. His brother Terrance was at the Memorial, and we could see the deep pain he was feeling. That whole family is feeling. We have to hold them in our thoughts and prayers. And I could see the raw pain and anger in the crowd gathered. I felt it, I heard it. People who've seen injustice before our very eyes, and can't live with it. And I said, even though the crowd was angry and hurt and unquestionably doubting, whether there could or would be change I said it is incumbent upon me and everyone in leadership to not just say words about change, but to produce change, and show people that we can have a better and more just society. It begins with all of us who you have chosen to lead to actually create that new reality. It cannot just be rhetoric. Rhetoric will be seen through quickly. It should not be just words. It should be actions. So, I said yesterday, and I say it again today, you will see change in this city. You will see change in the NYPD. We simply have not gone far enough. This status quo is still broken. It must change. I'm not going to forget all the progress that has been made. And it is in so many ways important and evident, but it's not enough. And people will know in their hearts when things have been made right. That's the moment I have to get us to more and more every single day. They will know when there is more justice. They will know when there is more fairness. They will know when people in this city, can walk down the street and feel they are safe from crime, but they also are not going to be disrespected, because of who they are. We are not there yet and we have to get there. So, this will be the work for the next year and a half of this administration to make more change, to make it urgently, to make it powerfully, to make it clear. And that work will proceed immediately. And you will see those results. And you'll judge for yourself as all New Yorkers do. But even though we say that phrase, words matter, and words do matter, actions matter more, and that's what we have to achieve.

So, let's talk about yesterday, last night, and also what we have to do. There were protests in our city during the day, they were overwhelmingly peaceful. Some proceeded into the night, also overwhelmingly peaceful. There are things we need to address. There are things we need to fix in the NYPD, but the overall restraint levels were clear. And I always express my appreciation to the men and women of the NYPD for the work that they do. And we need that restraint. We expect that restraint. That is the instruction that all officers have been given. There were those overwhelmingly peaceful protests. There were few or no attacks on property. There were however, some attempts at violence. And this is the point I always want to make to people. We've got a very few mingled in among the peaceful protesters who aim to do violence. Their methods are systematic. I have asked the NYPD to keep providing the information, what we're seeing here, what we're seeing around the country about that very systematic attempt to foster violence. We will not accept that. Every single time we'll intervene to stop that. We also saw in the midst of what was undoubtedly overwhelmingly, what we want to see, an overwhelmingly peaceful night, peaceful protest, little or no property damage, efforts and violence sorted. These are all very good and important things. We saw some things that weren't so good, and I want to make sure those are addressed. First of all, there is no circumstance in which a member of the news media should ever be arrested by the NYPD or any other police organization. If you said to me, well, what if that person overtly went out and committed a crime, obviously then they're committing a crime, they're not doing their job as a member of the news media. That is a different matter. What I'm concerned about is when news media is out there doing their job, reporting, looking at the truth, whether it's convenient or inconvenient truth, their right to do their job must be protected at all times. That is as clear as a bell in our constitution. So, I don't know why we've seen here, and in other parts of the country instances where members of the media that were arrested, that is unacceptable and that needs to stop. And it's clear that that is one of the underpinnings of a free society. Also, want to make clear, this curfew was brought together very quickly in an emergency situation. The message from the beginning was essential workers doing their job in the middle of doing their work are exempted from the curfew. And I want to make that clear to people. The curfew is only going on for a few more nights, but essential workers are essential workers. Any essential worker doing their job is exempted from the curfew. And we are making that abundantly clear to everyone, to the essential workers themselves, and to the NYPD.

Each night, we see a lot of good work. Each night, we see some progress towards our goal of getting back to a fully peaceful circumstance so we can move forward. Because, phase one, the restart of our city begins Monday. That's where we're supremely focused to start moving us forward. But each night we see certainly several situations that raise real questions. Individual instances, where our officers take an action that raises a valid concern. In each and every case, there must be a full investigation, and where discipline is warranted, it needs to be speedy. I've had this conversation with Commissioner Shea. We are working together to ensure that the past history where internal discipline of the NYPD was slow. We're not doing that anymore, we have to move past that. Commissioner Shea spoke passionately yesterday about his desire to heal, to bring police and community together, to continue that progress. And to make clear to people, there are consequences when something has done wrong. The vast, vast majority of officers do their job, do it right, but when someone does something wrong, as in all of our society, there must be consequences. Commissioner Shea made clear yesterday, disciplinary actions are about to be announced. Some will include suspensions of officers. There's a lot going on, but one thing that has to happen is people need to see. The people of this city need to see that when an officer does something wrong, it is investigated. If it is found to be true that something wrong was done, there must be consequences, and they must be swift. That is one of the ways to restore trust and begin the process of moving us forward. And that is what we will do.

I want us to get to the day where no one wonders if they're being treated differently because of the color of their skin. We are not there to say the least, we have to get there. But again, it's not about words. People will know it. If they start to experience something differently, young men came up to me over the years, and told me how different it was to not be stopped all the time. Stop and frisk was a horrible stain on this city. Hundreds of thousands of young people in a given year treated like criminals, even though they hadn't done anything. Devalued young men of color, the future of this city, devalued. Treated with disrespect. That was broken. We fixed that. And I've heard from those who used to experience that disrespect, how much better it feels to just be able to walk down the street, go to school, go to work, be treated with dignity and decency. We've got a lot more to do. That should be every encounter that a citizen of this city has with the NYPD. That's what we strive for. But in the meantime, we've got huge inequities we have to address. Not just in policing, in our economy, in our health care system, everything laid bare by the coronavirus epidemic. And right now, we must address those disparities. We must keep our city safe in this moment of this pandemic. We have to restart our economy. Wherever I go, people talk about how fearful they are for their health, for their family's health, but also, because they're running out of money or they already have run out of money. How are they going to pay the rent? How are they going to pay for food? How are they going to pay for medications? We have to fight back this disease more. We cannot take our eye off the ball.

So, Monday is the restart, and that will be something that allow us to get people back their livelihoods, but we'll also come— with challenges of fighting back this disease. What does it come down to? If we're going to fight this disease, it is once again about that word you've heard so many times testing, testing, testing, testing. That is a way forward, then tracing following up on everyone who was in contact with someone who tested positive so much to do, to make sure we keep people safe, but this is our focus right now. Last week, we had a day where 33,000 people got tested in one day in New York City, the highest we've had since the beginning of this crisis, we intend to keep building that number up to at least 50,000 a day.

Now, the message is I want every New Yorker to get tested and more and more testing capacity is out there in your community. Go take advantage of it, it will help us to move forward. Today we announced something really important that will be mobile testing in New York City— mobile diagnostic testing. So, you can literally stay in your neighborhood, and the testing trucks come to you. We're starting in two neighborhoods next week, Soundview in the Bronx and Kew Gardens in Queens, and they'll be moving around in neighborhoods all over the City. This is an idea that came out of the work within this city government, our task force on racial equity and inclusion, our center for community and faith partnerships, our leaders in this administration talking to community members saying, what do you need? What would help? And people said, mobile testing. We need it in neighborhoods hit hard, we need it so that people can more easily connect with testing. We need to remind people, it is always free, it's easy, it's fast, and it's coming to you. Two trucks next week, we're going to ramp up to 10 trucks in the next few weeks. They can do 80 tests per day, excuse me, 80 tests per day per truck. So, 800 more tests per day because of the trucks. And again, whether it's one of the trucks or one of the hundred and 80 centers that we now are putting up or have up, you can get a free test by going to nyc.gov/CovidTest or calling 3-1-1.

Final point on this, if you have been at one of these protests, I want to strongly urge you to get tested. It has been a real concern that people have gathered in close proximity. I understood, and I understand still this painful, real moment in history, but I want to keep reminding people. It is dangerous to be close together and people must keep social distance, and we got to get back to that clear understanding. We're going have to hold that clear understanding social distancing, face coverings, we got to get back to that discipline. So, if you have been in a protest, I strongly urge you to get tested.

Now, fighting disparity means focusing on the hardest hit neighborhoods, fighting disparity means providing more to those neighborhoods all the time. These neighborhoods are filled with people who have done the work that built the city over generations, but have never reaped the rewards of their labors. We have so much more to do to create fairness and redistribute the wealth of this city, to the places that actually built that wealth, but weren't rewarded. So, one of the ways we do that is through a strong public health care system, 11 hospitals, 70 clinics that serve the people of city, regardless of ability to pay. We've got to strengthen that system, we invested in it years ago to save it. That became a crucial element of how we were able to save many lives at the height of this crisis and help push back this disease, now we need to go on the offensive and deepen our investments in communities. Once again, our taskforce on racial equity and inclusion, push this notion hard that we need tangible impacts now to address disparity, not in the future now. And so, the task force insisted that we look at how to speed up all of our plans and make sure that real investments happen in communities right now that will help people get more health care. There's a specific new initiative called Centers of Excellence, and this will mean that three new ambulatory care facilities will be built in neighborhoods that need it in New York City. In Elmhurst Queens, I don't think I have to say anything more, after what we saw happen at Elmhurst Hospital, Tremont the Bronx, Bushwick and Brooklyn. Centers of Excellence, they were supposed to be something in the future, now they will be open this September. The task force made the point, this is why I named the task force speed intensity, redistribution, focus on impact now in communities that are hurting. these centers of excellence will provide a wide range of health care, they'll focus on COVID, fighting COVID, they'll focus on making sure that respiratory diseases are addressed. they'll make sure that people not only get physical health care, but mental health care as well. Tens of thousands of people per year will benefit, construction is beginning immediately. And I want to thank, of course, the Racial Equity and Inclusion Task Force, I want to thank Health and Hospitals. I want to thank our Department of Design and Construction, that's doing amazing work, extraordinarily fast work. These three centers will be opened this September and many, many people will benefit, and it will help us fight back this disease, but it will also help us fight back that deeper health care disparities.

Now, getting people back to their livelihood, that's what phase one is about. Getting New York City back on its path, to being strong again, to our economy being strong to our people, having what they need. Three days from now, phase one begins, one of the big pieces of phase one is construction, 32,000 construction sites will reopen. Some magnitude is a reminder, as recently as February, how vibrant the economy of this city was and how vibrant it will be again, 32,000 construction sites will come back. That means a lot of New Yorkers will come back to work, but it has to be safe, has to be healthy, that is the bottom line. Every site has to be ready and we're going to make sure it's ready, the guidelines are clear. You go to nyc.gov/coronavirus, every single company can see and working people can see what those standards of healthy, safe work would be, and we are going to protect every single worker. Department of Buildings will be out inspecting the sites constantly, every single one, making sure their social distancing, proper hygiene rules, hand sanitizer, face coverings, you name it. For the first 30 days, I want this to be very clear to all the owners and managers of the companies involved in these construction sites. For the first 30 days, we will educate, we will constantly monitor, we will help you to ensure what you're doing is safe. Our department of buildings will be there to help, not to fine to help, but if after 30 days of nonstop engagement, you are not doing what you need to do, then the fines begin. I don't want to give a single fine, I don't want to take money from anyone unless you are ignoring the health and safety needs of your workers.

Let's now talk about our thresholds and in general, the news is good, but this is going to be something we will be talking about for days and weeks ahead. And we're going to watch when we see something that isn't as good and make sure it does not turn into a larger trend. So, indicator number one, daily number of people admitted to hospitals for a suspected COVID-19. That was only 48 yesterday, today we saw a jump I don't like that, It's 84 today. Now 84 is still well within our 200-person threshold, but that's a meaningful movement in one day, we're going to keep a close eye on that. We need to stay under 200 to keep sustaining phase one and to move on to phase two. Daily number of people in our Health and Hospitals ICUs is under threshold today, 344 against the threshold of 375. Percentage of people tested positive for COVID citywide, well within under our threshold of 15 percent, that number today is four percent, that's a very good number. So overwhelmingly good results based on all of your hard work, but we got to hold the line, we cannot loosen up because these numbers start to move in the wrong direction, we're going to talk about it. If ever to move in the wrong direction, we're going to talk about it, they move too much in the wrong direction, we then can't keep moving forward on our plan for reopening. So, we have to be clear about holding the line.

MAYOR DE BLASIO on Protests and COVID-19 - June 4, 2020

  Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good morning, everybody. There’s over 8 million people in this city – over 8 million people who just want to live in peace – over 8 million people who want things to get better, who want to see this city brought together, who want to see us fight back against the disease that's afflicted us all, held us back, disrupted our lives. Done so much damage to our families, and our neighborhoods. Done so much damage to our families and our neighborhoods. People want peace, and they want us to move forward. Now, there always going to be people trying to disrupt the peace and unity of this place. The single most diverse place on earth, a beacon of hope to the world. That's what New York City is, because New York City offers the possibility and the promise that people could come together from all faiths, from all backgrounds in one place, people of all nations building together something better, and that's what we do all the time. And sometimes we meet crisis, because that is part of humanity. Sometimes we meet challenges, but New Yorkers historically time, and again, overcome these challenges, and actually find more unity, more strength, and we will do that again now. These have been tough, tough days, painful days, confusing days, not just the last few days, the three months that we've been dealing with the greatest healthcare crisis in generations, but we will fight our way through together. And the only way we get there is together. Last night in New York City, there were some specific, horrible moments, but there was overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly peace. Last night in New York City, the NYPD was out there protecting us. Men and women of the NYPD, we ask so much of them. We asked so much strength, so much restraint. They were out there protecting us as they do every day. There were people out there, very few who were protesting overwhelmingly peacefully. We did not see, thank God anybody, very few acts of vandalism. We saw overwhelmingly it was peaceful protest. The vast, vast, vast majority of New Yorkers honored the curfew. The curfew helped to move us towards peace and a better place. We're going to keep at this work day after day, it will not be easy, but we will keep at it and we will achieve the progress we need.

Had a horrible, painful incident late last night in Brooklyn, three of our officers wounded in an absolutely unprovoked attack and we are piecing together the details. Commissioner Shea will speak to it, but there's still a lot more to know. But I've seen the video of myself, and I can say here were two of our officers simply trying to protect the community, and they came under unprovoked attack, and that is absolutely unacceptable attack on any one of our officers is an attack on all of us. I need you to know that the officers who were wounded represented all that is great about New York City. Represented the fact that people come here from all over this country, all over this world to find a better life. And they represent this entire world, and then some choose to serve all of us. The officer who was attacked with a knife, police officer Jean Pierre, born in Haiti, came here, an exemplary young man giving back to the country that welcomed him and embraced him. He was the one attacked with a knife last night. And two of his colleagues, Officer Ramnarine, his parents immigrated in this country. Officer Chu, as well his parents immigrated to this country. A painful, horrible moment at the same time, a picture of the greatness of the New York City, that these three individuals brought all of themselves to all of us to protect all of us. Thank God they will all recover, but it is unacceptable. I'm going to say it so clearly, it's absolutely unacceptable to attack a police officer in any way, shape or form. We will not tolerate. There will always be consequences.

Now, let's move forward. Let's move forward. Today in Minnesota will be the funeral for George Floyd. There will be a Memorial here in New York City. That marks a moment to recognize the pain that caused so much concern. So much of an outpouring, of a deep, deep, deep desire for change. But there's also an inflection point. I ask everyone to remember if we're going to make changes, we have to do it together, and we need peace. So, this is a good moment to reflect and a good moment to turn the page, and start moving forward.

Now, we saw some horrible events a few days ago. And as I keep saying, it had nothing to do with the actions of peaceful protesters. We saw attacks on communities in the Bronx, and in Manhattan, just pure vandalism criminality, only for personal gain, not for any cause. And in the community in the Bronx that I visited a few days ago, Burnside Avenue, Fordham Road, the places that were hit so hard. We have small business owners fighting back. We have community residents cleaning up the streets, not accepting anyone who would try to destroy their community, standing up, reclaiming their streets, their neighborhood, their city. We will help them. Those small business owners who scratched, and saved, and built a small business. So many of them immigrants living the American dream, today we announce support for them. The New York City Mayor's Fund will start with a half a million dollars to help those businesses recover. Individual grants, direct cash assistance. I want to thank everyone who is supporting this effort. We turn to community members who care, and they stepped up to help the people of the Bronx, to help those small businesses. Special thanks to SOMOS Community Care, to Dr. Ramon Tallaj, and Dr. Henry Chen. New Yorkers, immigrants, people who believe in helping others. They will work with us to help those small businesses back on their feet. I met those small business owners. They're not going anywhere. They believe in the Bronx. They believe in New York City. They will be back. We'll provide a variety of help to all those small businesses that were affected legal help, help get insurance, whatever it takes to get them back on their feet.

Now, let's go back to the moment in history we're in much more broadly. We're dealing with some very, very real issues these last days, but remember for almost a hundred days now we have been dealing with the coronavirus. This pandemic has created such pain, such frustration. That's laid bare such clear disparities that must be addressed, and taking such a human toll. And then on top of it, created a crisis that stole people's livelihood that forced people, especially our young people to have to be indoors without schools, without the things that they depended on, the community centers, all the things that mattered. This disruption has been vast, but we will not let it stop us, and we will rebuild, and we will restart. And so Monday, June 8th phase one begins, and we are resolute that we will continue this restart process. We're going to do all we can to support the businesses in phase one. We're going to do all we can to support working people who are part of phase one. Today, we launch a dedicated hotline to help small businesses. Today we will put out guides to help small businesses know exactly what they need to be able to do the work of restart. Any small business that needs help, as they prepare for Monday can call 888-SBS-4NYC. We're going to be providing 2 million free face coverings to small businesses to help them get started. We're going to help workers as well. Any worker who has a return to work and is concerned about their health and safety, needs guidance, needs support, can call 311 or they can go to nyc.gov/coronavirus to get the facts about all we will do to help working people. We must have health and safety as the priorities in this restart. So, we're going to go forward with a vigorous, energetic approach that we must restart. Phase one must begin Monday. It will begin Monday. If we all work together, phase one can move on to phase two. And at this moment, phase two can start as early as the beginning of July. So, we want to keep moving forward, but it's going to take an intensive focus on health and safety at every moment in every business in everything we do. But we're not just saying to businesses, go out there and figure it out. We will be with them every step of the way to help them protect themselves, to protect the workers, make sure that everything is done the right way. We want these businesses to succeed as they come back. We want this city to succeed. We want people to get their livelihoods back, and that's going to help create progress and peace when people can make ends meet again. So, we will be there with the business of New York City as they restart Monday.

Now, I mentioned that phase two could begin as early as the beginning of July. And in phase two, we will be able to move onto many other types of businesses. And as we heard from the state, that can also include reopening a number of our restaurants with a focus on outdoors. And that's the way we want to go. We have a new initiative, open restaurants that will focus on what it takes to make outdoor seating work. We will provide a plan to help restaurants set up that outdoor seating, to help them bring their employees back. We will provide a massive expansion of curbside seating, a big expansion of open streets. We'll do what it takes to help this key part of life in New York City, key part of our economy, the wellspring of the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to come back, come back strong, starting in phase two in July. This is going to be another important step. But again, health and safety first. Everything we're doing is to make sure that we do it safely, that this disease does not spread, that we beat it back. And as our test and trace program comes into high gear this week, we fight back to disease with more and more testing for New Yorkers, more and more tracing of those who have been infected and all their contacts to get them the help they need. To get them if they need to be safely separated, the support, they need more testing, more tracing, more support at the same time as we help businesses restart safely, bring back people's livelihood, bringing back all that people love about this place, fight this disease back every day. And that leads me to our indicators and thresholds.

Once again, we see that because of what you have done. You, everyone I'm looking at out there over 8 million people, you have achieved this success. Indicator one, daily number of people admitted to hospitals for suspected COVID-19. Again, that threshold has to stay under 200 patients a day, 48 is our latest report only 48, and that is great. Indicator two, daily number of people in our Health and Hospitals, ICU that threshold is 375 and today only 354 in our ICU. And this is the most important and best news, percentage of people tested positive citywide for COVID-19, that threshold is 15 percent today we have the lowest number we have seen since this crisis began only three percent testing, positive with more and more testing, happening more and more people being reached only three percent testing positive. That is very good news, whatever else we're fighting, whatever else we have to overcome, this is what is going to allow us to move forward. And it's because of all of you, everyone has stayed indoors, no matter it's tough, everyone is socially distance, everyone who wears a face cover. You are changing things so that we can restart this city and make sure we move forward. Thank you.