Hochul: Major decrease in gun violence across state – wants to help cops

ALBANY – On Thursday, Governor Kathy Hochul announced that communities participating in New York State’s Gun Involved Violence Elimination (GIVE) initiative reported the lowest levels of shooting incidents on record last year. Year-end data shows that shooting incidents with injury, the number of individuals shot, and gun violence-related deaths across the 28 GIVE agencies all reached record lows statewide. Albany, Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse reported double-digit percentage declines in key gun violence indicators in 2025, contributing to a 61 percent statewide reduction in gun violence since 2021.

In 2025,  show 491 shooting incidents involving injury, a 16 percent decline compared to the previous year. The number of individuals shot decreased 22 percent, from 723 to 566, while fatalities from gun violence fell 23 percent, from 116 to 89.

New York’s nationally-recognized GIVE program, administered through the Division of Criminal Justice Services, provides state funding to local law enforcement agencies outside of New York City, for equipment, overtime, personnel, and provides comprehensive, focused training and technical assistance to those agencies.

The initiative supports 28 police departments and district attorneys’ offices, probation departments and sheriffs’ offices in 21 counties.  In the Hudson Valley, the City of Poughkeepsie PD, Middletown PD, City of Newburgh PD, Spring Valley PD, Kingston, Mount Vernon, and Yonkers police departments all receive GIVE funding to combat gun violence.

Funding to GIVE Hochul said, is used “to combat gun violence, and even with the shootings at record lows, I’m still investing more to make sure those numbers stay low. I don’t want to take our foot off the gas and then see an upward trend in crimes, and we’re not going there.”