Albany DA says Kathy Hochul must change Raise the Age law – Today Breeze

Albany County District Attorney David Soares says fellow Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul must back efforts to lock up more teenage gunmen — or face failure at meeting the lofty public safety goals she outlined in her State of the State speech Wednesday.

“A glaring weakness in our effort to combat gun violence is the fact that you have Raise the Age that still permits 16 and 17 year-olds to possess loaded firearms,” Soares said in an exclusive interview.

Hochul’s silence on the issue Tuesday suggests she has no plans to change the 2018 law backed by progressive legislators that sends most teenage criminal defendants to Family Court rather than the adult justice system.

Soares said that there has been a seemingly unending onslaught of cases involving teens under 18 years old who get caught, one way or another, with firearms only to get sent to family court and sent back home.

Some of them have gone on to commit ghastly crimes, he said, but the situation could change if Hochul backed one simple tweak to state law involving when teens packing heat might get placed behind bars to better protect public safety via adult courts.

“If they simply change the language from ‘display’ to ‘possession,’ then we would be allowed to hold those individuals accountable,” said Soares, who added that he saw a lot to otherwise like in the speech Hochul gave Tuesday.

Hochul is backing changes to other controversial criminal justice reforms while proposing funding increases so that prosecutors can better implement new laws aimed at making the system fairer.

More details on her public safety strategy will come through budget bills she will formally unveil sometime in January.

“Governor Hochul’s top priority is keeping New Yorkers safe, and she is taking bold actions to combat gun violence and crime, and we look forward to working with the legislature to continue to strengthen public safety and protect New Yorkers,” Hochul spokeswoman Hazel Crampton-Hays said Wednesday.