B-Roll, Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Cracking Down on Retail Theft: Governor Hochul Announces New York State Police Organized Retail Theft Task Force Has Recovered More Than $2.6 Million in Stolen Goods

Earlier today, Governor Hochul announced that the New York State Police Organized Retail Theft Task Force has recovered more than $2.6 million in stolen goods statewide since launching new initiatives to curb retail theft in April 2024. Across 1,006 operations, State Police and local law enforcement partners have made 1,224 arrests and filed 2,146 charges. This concerted, joint effort to tackle the pandemic-era surge in thefts has contributed to a 13.6 percent decrease in retail theft year-over-year in New York City and a 13 percent decrease in larceny outside of New York City from January through June of this year as compared to the same time last year.

B-ROLL of the Governor walking around a store with Gaia DiLoreto, Executive Director of Brooklyn Made Stores and Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

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:

Great to see everybody here today as we're kicking off the holiday season — shopping local, which is really important and I speak from personal experience because many years ago my mother started a small retail shop flower and gifts, and I worked there on weekends for her and helped her set up the business as her daughter — the lawyer — she thought would know how to do it. I didn't really know, but I did it.

But the point is, I understand personally the challenges of being a small retailer and how you start out with a dream. And here we have in Brooklyn an opportunity for — at this great store — to promote all those who are just getting a start, who create the most beautiful products: The clothes, the jewelries, the candles and everything you see here. And this is a great outlet, and I thank the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce for helping make this be a place where they can support each other and create an ecosystem, which really adds a lot to the interest of this community.

So it's all about supporting the local mom and pop shops. It's about making sure that they know that we're protecting them. And when I first became Governor, there was a spike in retail theft. I mean, nationwide you saw the brazen efforts by these organized retail theft rings that would just go into stores and sweep the shelves — fill up their bags and boxes and backpacks and jump into vehicles and go on and do it again and again. And this was having a paralyzing effect on our small businesses. And I heard from them and I walked the streets in Brooklyn and in Queens and I was up in — I remember up in the Bronx meeting a small business owner who said, “I'm just going to leave the cash drawer open because they're going to come in every day and take everything I have out of it.” The cash as well as the merchandise.

So, it was a huge source of frustration. My view is that when I hear concerns like this, I have to take action. And we took action and I went back to my team and said, “We have to do something to give them a better shot of success and to stop this specter of this ongoing theft, which is creating chaos for the retailers — the loss in merchandise, the hit to the bottom line, but also the employees who were being threatened, who were fearful for their lives, simply doing their jobs and coming to work every day.”

So we saw this opportunity to stand up and speak about it, draw attention to it, but also roll up our sleeves and get to work. And what I did is I went back to the legislature. I said, “We're going to need some money for this.” We allocated $40 million to help our district attorneys set up their own SWAT teams there, so to speak, to go do investigations. Because I would say that with murders and shootings and other crimes on the rise, this did not rise as a priority for many offices because of limited resources. So we gave them the resources. And here in Brooklyn, our great District Attorney Eric Gonzalez — I talked to his team members and they got started and they became very aggressive about that, as we've seen across the state.

So number one was putting money into the system. Number two was also making sure that we had grants to help small businesses that needed security funds to put in some cameras and other measures they can take to protect their merchandise. Number three, we had to change the laws to increase the penalties for anyone who assaults. Someone who's in the process of — they're working behind the counter, they're vulnerable not just in stores like this, but even — I would go to gas stations and I would watch some of the footage. I was out in Long Island watching the footage from the store, someone literally being beaten up while someone was stealing from them. Someone walked behind the counter and beat the crap out of them, and then walked off with merchandise. So that was going on. So we wanted to make sure our penalties were increased to protect the people who come to work every single day.

We had a hundred people dedicated from the State Police to the first ever task force that did coordinated work with federal, state and local law enforcement to bring it all together. And guess what? After all these efforts, and we launched this in March of 2024, about 18 months ago, I'm here to report that statewide and in the City of New York, retail theft has already gone down 13 percent. Now that's after going up. It had gone up literally 68 percent since the pandemic — up 68 percent. Now look how much it has dropped just in one year because of our efforts.

We never say mission accomplished. We're here to continue the work, but I want to put a spotlight on the fact that as we enter this holiday season, we want people to come out, feel comfortable walking into places like this or their storefronts, or going anywhere they want. We encourage people to shop in person as much as you can because there are real people, real stories to be told, real families where someone has a dream and you want to make sure that they're successful, because it adds so much color and personality and character to our local communities. So I'm a big believer in small businesses, supporting the 70,000 retail businesses that we have across the great State of New York, but also protecting them, making sure that they know that we are on the front lines to make sure they have everything they need.

So retail theft is down 13 percent statewide and in the City as well. We're going to keep the money coming and making sure our businesses can thrive, especially as we enter into the holiday season — which I will just put as an aside — has been cast into a lot of uncertainty because of tariffs and a lot of merchandise that's not here because you make everything here in Brooklyn. Thank you for making everything here in Brooklyn. But those who sell merchandise that comes from overseas as many holiday gifts are — people have been in a panic about the tariff and the increase in merchandise and who absorbs that? Is the retailer supposed to absorb that or is it the customer? And I'm telling you many times it's going to be the customer. And they're bracing for a holiday season where their money will not go as far as it would have a year ago because of these tariffs, I believe illegally imposed by the President of the United States. So that's another factor here, which is why we want to keep retail theft down, keep more money in the pockets of our business owners here.