Good afternoon, Council. Paul Riddell. I'm the Chief of the Dangerous Drug Offender. First and foremost, the drones are going to give us the ability to see things that we ordinarily couldn't see or put us in certain places. Because what we're finding out right now from our surveillance cameras that we work with the Philadelphia Police Department is sometimes they absolutely know where they're at and you can't move that, so sometimes they get destroyed or they get taken, along those lines. But if we can use drones, we can actually follow people when we're making purchases, when we're doing takedowns. We can put other eyes on a property, back and front. It's the ability to do everything we'd want to do with a police force, but that we can do also with drones, and that's also going to give safety to police officers. And at the end of the day, what we're going to be able to do is go into court and we're going to film footage of everything we said we do. We want the certainty of our convictions. We want them to stand. We want to have the integrity of our convictions. And as the DA was saying, if we use all these other tools, not just some person saying I saw x, but when we only have a person who says that and says, well, look at the video, those cases are pleas. Those cases don't go to trial. And if they do, there's certain convictions that --
Can you elaborate on what we're doing wrong, as a city or what we're doing wrong -- I think partly we just got to catch up with the technology, let's be honest. It's already been out there. It's something we're all looking into and trying to get a hold of. We put in a request internally that we would have our own drones to then work with the Philadelphia Police Department. And my unit works with everybody. We're working with DEA, PPD, State Police --
We need to talk a little more about that. The one drone case that I would go to, Mr. President, was when they were having caravans roving, caravans of people attacking malls. There was a famous person, Meatball, that they --
Yeah, I know Meatball. I mean, I don't know here personally, but I know of Meatball.
Yeah, and they caught her and found her, you know. So I'm just going to say I think it's a useful piece of technology to put on our tool belt, similar to license plate readers, cameras and stuff like that. So whatever we have to work out, let's fix it. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you. Meatball saying, Ain't nothing. Chair recognizes Councilmember Quetcy Lozada. Welcome, good to see you today. Councilmember Rue Landau, then Councilmember Phillips will take us home.
It's good to be here today. Good to be seen. Thank you, sir. Internal jokes. Good afternoon. Thank you for being with us this afternoon. I just have two questions. I appreciate the work that you all have been doing. I know that it's not easy, but I appreciate the work that you all have done thus far to be able to improve the quality of life in the Kensington community. We have a lot of work to do, but I think that since I arrived in 2022 I have seen a change in my community and so have the residents, and I know that you all have been a part of that change. So I just want to express my gratitude. We have been working very closely with the police department in the Mayor's mission of that pie piece that she talks about often. And before folks get their underwear in a bunch, this is not about anti-gun holders or license to carry, none of that. This has to do with what we are seeing in my community that has increased the level of concern amongst residents, children, stakeholders. I'm sure that you or your teams watch social media. You have seen young gentlemen now walking around in my community with open carry automatic weapons in the neighborhood like it's a toy. And the guys in my community are built different. And if you threaten them and you don't look at them a certain way, they're going to handle their business, right. And so, our concern is that they will handle their business and others will be impacted by the results of that. We've been talking to the police department. And they say, Councilmember, we can't, you know, our hands are kind of tied, we can't do a whole lot because these individuals have an ID, they're able to carry. I can't accept that. There has got to be something that we can do so that folks understand that that is not normal. You cannot have to carry a weapon of this magnitude to feel safe in your neighborhood. We cannot allow for our children to continue to be impacted by these types of things that they're seeing every day. And so, what we are calling that additional trauma, I'm just trying to figure out what can you do in collaboration with the police department so that this doesn't become the trend of this summer? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I understand your concern. And frankly, almost 40 years in this field I find it absolutely shocking the state of what the United States Supreme Court considers to be appropriate when it comes to the Second Amendment. And I find it shocking what the Pennsylvania legislature and even our Pennsylvania Supreme Court, who frankly have been forced, it's not their wishes, but they've been forced by the U.S. Supreme Court to certain positions that have left us in this absurd situation. There is no question that people walking around with weapons, especially big weapons, are frightening others. I mean, we know that if you have a gun in your home, the chances of being harmed by a gun go up 500%. It doesn't make anybody safer. It's madness. But your question is much more specific, what can we do here with a frankly hostile Pennsylvania legislature. Not our delegation. Our delegation is on the right page with this stuff. But with a hostile Pennsylvania legislature, with a hostile Supreme Court that's a mini legislature and is trying to turn the entire country into a war zone in terms of the gun law, what can we do now. Mr. Fritze, I'm going to ask you to address the specifics of people walking around with large weapons in the City of Philadelphia. What is legal, what is not and what thoughts you have that we're able to talk about publicly that can be done?
Again, William Fritze from the Chief of the Gun Violence Task Force. This individual I am well aware of. We've been observing him as well. Unfortunately, the reason that the police department is telling you they feel their hands are tied are the same reasons that I'm going to tell you that they are slightly tied. But it doesn't mean that that is the answer. Under Pennsylvania law, you can carry a long gun, open carry, right. And so, that's what this individual is doing. Philadelphia specifically has a statute which is a misdemeanor, that if you carry that open long rifle without a license, you're in violation of that misdemeanor statute. That law itself is also on review of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court right now as to whether we will be able to continue to enforce it. So this individual knows the law, right, as it sits. And there's some things that I think we can talk with the police department about and see, because a license to carry is authorized by the county in which the individual obtained the license and you have to be in good standing. So the question comes in maybe that we need to look and determine whether an individual is in good standing and should maintain that license to carry if they're putting the public at risk or if they are scaring the public, right. That to me would deem it not to be in good standing and therefore a revocation of that license, and therefore no longer able to open carry in Philadelphia. That would create case law and that would create its own set of problems. But it is of grave concern that this person is essentially walking the streets with an automatic rifle right now and giving them to others to carry around as well. So we're well aware of him. And I'm happy to discuss off the record with you some thoughts as well.
I appreciate that. I think it's important for all of us to be aware that it's happening, right. None of us should be able to see or to say we haven't seen the images on social media. We don't know what is happening. I want to make sure that all of us are very conscious that it's happening. It started in my neighborhood. It will come to a neighborhood near you if we don't do something about this. There is no way that folks in this city are preparing to welcome millions of people into our city and they are faced with this type of behavior in anybody's neighborhood. Right now I'm advocating for mine, but I'm sure that this will get to other neighborhoods very quickly if we don't respond to this, right. And again, I want to be very clear and I want to say it again, this has nothing to do with folks' rights to carry or own weapons. That's not what this is about. I think that this is greater than that. And so, I'd appreciate any conversations or any solutions that we can come up with together. My next question is around your Domestic Violence Unit and the funding that we're looking to secure for that. I think as we have seen crime go down, domestic violence issues have gone up and I work very closely with many of our on-the-ground partners. My question is, how will the money that you all are asking for, how is it going to impact the smaller boots-on-the-ground and those programs and their funding? Will they be impacted in any way? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I just want to make sure I understand the question. We are seeking money for the purpose of a prolific or a Repeat Domestic Violence Offender Unit. Essentially, the point there is that there's a wide array of domestic violence that occurs. At the less serious but certainly important end is someone with no 12 prior record, married for an extended period of time, develops an issue with alcohol, acts out and is arrested for the first time having not caused serious injury. But it's worth the arrest, it's worth the intervention. It's worth hearing from the victim, who may very well say, I really don't want him convicted for a lot of reasons. I really want to reunite. He's been a good father. But for whatever reason, he's got an alcohol problem and he's acting out, and we're able to take that and route it towards serious treatment, serious diversion with the hope often realized that this person never re-offended. The opposite end is the person who has now harmed their partner for the third time, has already done jail time in another state for this. This time is boiling a pot of water on the stove with the intention of throwing it in her face while she sleeps. And that is the place where we need to be, in my opinion, extremely serious about the consequences, the protection, the separation from society. And obviously, there's a lot of stuff in the middle. There is a spectrum of very troubling behavior and behavior that sometimes results in murder. We have domestic violence murders that occur in the City of Philadelphia and in every other city. So this is an issue that I think is very, very important to us. However, the money we are seeking is for the DA's Office to have a Domestic Violence Repeat Offender Unit of specialized attorneys, highly-experienced, people who've been in the family violence, sexual assault and domestic violence space for years, who have a unique capacity really to take a case from beginning to end, to be very effective when you have victims who are often under tremendous psychological pressure or even physical threat and we need to follow through as a society to make sure we are able to have a consequence there. That is what the money is for. The money is not for us to provide it to an outside victim services agency. Now, separate and apart from that, we are seeking money as we've made clear for victim services agencies that also do this work.
Women Organize Against Rape under its new name, Women Against Abuse, among others, and all the area providers, as well as people in our office who on a daily basis deal with domestic violence units. So there is money going there, but within the pot that is for the establishment of a repeat domestic violence offender, none of that money would be going to the victim services. It would be going through the other route. Having said that, the resident expert here is Katrina Wadas once again, and I'll give her a chance to comment on how our Repeat Offender Unit for domestic violence would be organized and how it would operate.
Thank you, and thank you for your question about the Repeat DV Offender Unit. I think it's an important one, and it's important to make a distinction that this is a unit that has never existed in the DA's Office. I know that there's been questions in the past about isn't there already a unit of this type. And I think that was geared towards the fact that there is a Family Violence and Sexual Assault Unit. However, the Family Violence and Sexual Assault Unit does not handle all domestic violence cases. There is a large number of cases that are never handled by our unit. We handle in Family Violence, all sexual assault crimes and we handle felony domestic violence cases. However, those cases are first handled by the Municipal Court Unit, so we do not usually see those cases or interact with cases until they're beyond a preliminary hearing. The problem there is that often times we see the highest dismissal rates of a case at the preliminary hearing. So a large number of cases will be dismissed before they ever come into the hands of an experienced prosecutor, in which that experienced prosecutor, had they been involved at the inception, the outcome of that preliminary hearing may have been different. And so, for us to take this opportunity to take experienced ADAs who can focus at pre-preliminary hearing, meaning handling the case vertically from the moment that matter is charged through the preliminary hearing and beyond disposition, creates a situation that we've never had before, in which the repeat DV offenders are specifically targeted. And vigorous prosecution of an offender who's not on his first arrest, but who has repeatedly committed crimes against maybe the same partner, but maybe other partners. This isn't just a situation in which the same victim reappears. This is an individual who may be committing seemingly lower-level offenses, but against various partners, should be held accountable in a different way. And so, that's the idea behind creating a unit, unlike one we've had before, to specifically focus on those offenders. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Councilmember, I do actually want to make sure I fully answer your financial question because it's important. Within the Repeat Offender Unit, the funding that we are seeking for that, the total is 1,062,000 and change. What that buys is five Assistant DAs, who are dedicated to doing the work, three Detective IIs, that's a higher-level detective capable of more serious investigation, one victim witness coordinator. So there is within that budget a victim witness coordinator who would work on nothing but these cases, which is probably a better answer than the one I gave, although all of these other resources for victim witnesses, indirectly and directly, also support that, and one paralegal. That's essentially what the unit would come down to. With that number of prosecutors, well-supported by investigators with frightened victims and witnesses, in many instances, supported full-time by a victim witness coordinator in addition to the other resources, and of course a paralegal to make sure that all the paper is flowing and all the details are covered, we think that we could make a significant improvement in the quality of representation that is possible.
I just got a note that says the DA has cut 90,000 from all victim services, so he is asking to provide the agency money that will be lost. I don't know what bucket of money that is from, but is this money additional? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: You know, I'm not sure of what we're talking about here. But maybe -- I don't know that we've been trying to cut money, but perhaps I can offer additional clarity.
I guess the concern is, as you all are building this new unit, will the agencies that are currently providing services, even though they're different, will this unit now prioritize the work of the agencies?
So my name is Laquisha Anthony, and I'm from WOAR - Philadelphia Center Against Sexual Violence. So two things here. We are experiencing, as victim service agencies, a major cut from federal government from VOCA funding, and that's the cut that we're talking about, but also the 90k that the DA's Office had provided for us last year has been substantial in sustaining our services across the board. And he's advocating now for more funding to allow us to be able to have access to those funds again, which was a one-time thing.
Just to add a point of punctuation there -- G. Lamar Stewart, DA's Office -- so to the point that Laquisha just made, our office meets monthly with these nine organizations and how victim services work within the DA's Office, obviously there are three units within the DAO that does victim-related work. One is our CARES Unit that's focused on providing trauma support, peer-crisis support to families impacted by homicide, whether it's an arrest or not an arrest. Then our Witness Relocation Unit that focuses on safely relocating those who have been experiencing harassment or threats as a result of their cooperation with the criminal justice process. There's then our Victim Services Unit. Their work starts at the time of charging, providing specific support to victims and witnesses. But then we have nine contracted organizations, those are who are behind us right now. And through funding through City Council, we have funded those units prior to this DAO Administration for decades. Up until last year, these organizations did not receive additional funding for over 15 years. Through the advocacy of DA Krasner and our executive team and through the support of City Council, we were put in position to support them as they realized federal cuts were coming. We are now asking the city to support us again, that we might, as the chief law enforcement agency in the City and County of Philadelphia, be in a position to make sure that these organizations that are helping us to support victims and witnesses and co-survivors, that they may have the resources they need to keep their doors open, to keep their lights on and to keep their staffing paid. Many of them can tell their own stories, and I encourage you to read the letters that are inside of your packet, and how many of them were in a position where they almost had to lay off and some had to lay off staff over the last year. And so, we're hopeful that with your help we're in a position to continue to fund them. And that's not a whole lot of money, but it's something to help them along the way, as we continue to address the issue of public safety and support for families.
I heard you mention earlier, DA Krasner, the work that you all will be doing or what is coming as it relates to human trafficking in the Kensington community. We have seen a group of young women who kind of organize themselves from other states and spring break, summer break, come into the Kensington community, work and then go back home. We have met some who have been stuck here. And as we prepare for all of the folks that are going to be visiting us, is there a campaign or some sort of something that the DAO will be doing in order to, I guess, warn or caution individuals that this type of business will not be tolerated in our city? And I ask that question more so that folks don't get stuck here as a result of their activities than anything else. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: So thank you for the question. I do think one of the most important things that we all do in government is communication anymore, is providing information as I see it, and this is just one way to describe it. But I think there are two parallel tracks here, two lanes on this highway going the same direction and one of those lanes is public education. City Council has already allocated, as I understand, about a half a million dollars for the purpose of public education around trafficking. And as a challenge that we're going to face in this year of MLB's All Star Game and FIFA and the 250th anniversary, and that's great. And we intend to support it every way we can, and we have in the past, including by using our significant platform to help lift that up. But separate and apart from that, there's what the law enforcement people do in a room 12 and, that is, enforcement is try to figure out how to set the mouse trap and catch the mouse, so that you can say, hey, look, mice, don't come looking here, it doesn't end well. Well, that's a pretty effective form of communication too. These concepts overlap. But I can tell you, without getting into the details, that we are very active and actively meeting right now with reference to how we could have potentially effective enforcement actions, have them in a timely way, and have them to go exactly after the threat that you're talking about, which is people who are not stuck here yet, but who are being brought here or who are coming here in order to -- well, they're being brought here really by traffickers in order to be used by those traffickers to be exploited and for those traffickers to make money.
Thank you very much. Councilmember Quet -- I'm sorry. Councilmember Rue Landau.
Thank you, Council President. Thank you, DA Krasner and your whole team who is here today. Congratulations to everybody for the reduction in gun violence and other forms of violence in the City of Philadelphia. You have really done what you set out to do. And I want to remind you, in 2023 when I was on the trail to get the position I am now, I had a talk with you, DA Krasner, after you were on a panel, and I took great notes on the things that you were looking for, which was an increase in forensics. You wanted to increase enforcement by getting this investment in the forensics lab. You talked about electronic wiretaps, electronic warrants and that you needed this big investment. When I went around the city, many people who weren't yet believers in you and your team said, no, he just want to let everybody free. And I was like, I'm taking notes, I'm watching what he's saying publicly, we talked about it, this is what he wants. And it seems that you've gotten there, getting there, we need more investment in it, but you've done exactly what you said you needed in order to hold people accountable and to get all the evidence we need to close these cases. And so, congratulations to all of you. I am proud of you for that and I know that there's still much work to do. You also talked so much about what you've always said about community-based violence prevention. And my colleague, Chair Jones of the Public Safety Committee, I have always been a believer in this model. I did not need to be convinced. But again, it is absolutely wonderful to see our successes and the results of that. I am the Chair of the Tech Committee. And in my very first tech hearing I had in 2024, we worked with your data lab and had a hearing on the 57-plus blocks in the city of Philadelphia with the highest crimes based on a variety of reasons. I know those blocks have kind of morphed and changed. But I am curious if you can provide an update on the data behind that, whether you're collecting the same things, different things, what does your data say about targeted investments in the neighborhoods? Has there been a decrease in violence between these blocks, anything else we need to do? And I want to add to this. I don't know who can answer this. I just introduced a resolution to hold a hearing on the renewal of the city's Microsoft contract. Is that the same contract that you have or do you have your own in a different contract that you're asking about here? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Councilmember, thank you for the very kind words and we accept them. And we say, you're welcome on behalf of 650-plus people and all of our partners because we all know it ain't me, and of course all the victim services agencies that are here. The question, as I understand it, goes two directions and they are related. One Direction is the more technical aspect of the software that we need, the renewals and the payment for those renewals. The other one goes in the direction of our data lab. Our data lab is headed by the Philadelphia DA Office's first ever onstaff criminologist. That is Dr. Oren Gur seated right next to me, who left academia to run the show with our data lab. And obviously, all of you in Council for years now have been receiving packets of information on specific issues or just having to do with crime that occurs in your area. So I think Dr. Gur is probably best suited to try to respond to your inquiries about the 57 blocks, whether that is morphed in any other details you may need. We're happy to follow up with that after today, because I've certainly learned over time that data questions are usually best answered in hours or two weeks. They're 21 usually not best answered on the 22 fly, but he is here.
23 As for the cliff, the 24 July cliff that we're coming to when, like a bunch of lemmings, we all go over to the side because we don't have software anymore to do the basics and I have to go and buy a pile of pencils and a manual pencil sharpener, as for that, we have Mr. Benson here who is, among other things, our head of it, but also quite an expert in our budget and functions in that space a lot. So because your question began with 57 blocks and data around that, I will ask Dr. Gur to answer first and Mr. Benson to answer second.
Thank you for the question, Councilmember Landau. My name is Oren Gur. I'm the Director of the District Attorney's Transparency Analytics Lab. Really appreciate again you bringing up 57 blocks and that work. As DA Krasner foreshadowed, I don't have an answer for you right now, but I'd really love to have an opportunity to go back and recalculate that. And my hypothesis would be that there are fewer blocks that have had or 6 more shootings during a similar 7 time period because of the work of 8 everybody here around the DA and 9 around the room. So thank you and 10 we'll get back to you.
Thank you. Just to be clear, I want to restate my question because I meant to say Microsoft licensing renewal.
And hello, Councilmember Landau. Thank you for the question. I don't know if it's a lifelong dream to talk about Microsoft licensing in front of City Council, but thank you for the question. It used to be you used to be able to buy Microsoft 2012, Microsoft 2015. They changed to a subscription model a few years ago, which is just more expensive. We use the same contract that the city uses. OIT is not budgeted for the DA office's Microsoft license costs. There's two subscription tiers. There's sort of the cheaper version where you get Microsoft online and then there's the more expensive version, where you need Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and our trial teams all need the more expensive version. Specifically, Microsoft Word has lots of briefs, motions, have very finetuned formatting requirements. And then for PowerPoint, the worst thing that you could want in a courtroom is the Wi-Fi goes down, you need the actual physical version of the software on your computer when you're running it. So we've trimmed the request as much as possible for the licenses that our office needs. The ongoing sustainment is $285,000, is the request. OIT is not funded for it. We're not funded for it. And I've scoured every other area of our budget, whether there's other places we can pull from and there's just nowhere to go. So that's sort of what brings us to this cliff at the end of July.
Just to clarify, was this something the city paid for before and is not paying for now or is this a new --
It used to be a partial funding arrangement where, OIT covered part of the license cost and then the license increased, and they're not budgeted for the increase. And now, OIT is not budgeted for any of the Microsoft license costs for the DA's Office. So we're asking to stand on our own. There is no 3 other funding source for that. Them for those sort of basic operational costs, sort of like a utility bill 6 essentially.
I also wanted to ask one question having to do with immigration. As you know, Minority Leader and I, Kendra Brooks and I passed this great ICE Out legislative package with tremendous Council approval and support and it's affirming Philadelphia as a welcoming city. How much funding does your office receive to serve the immigrant community or how much do you put in place for that? And what programs do you have in place? And will you increase your immigration staff enforcement or any work to meet the moment as we see a tax on the immigrant community from the federal government? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Thank you really for that question. I think it's a very timely and important question. So the short answer is, we made financial room for this in 2018 when we copied the model that existed in Brooklyn, at that time, led by the man who was and is still the District Attorney in Brooklyn, a guy named Eric Gonzales. That, of course, is because Brooklyn is just full of immigrants, so they deal with these issues all the time. He had to come up with a very sensible approach at a time when the leadership in Washington was not nuts. And that approach was to be there to support victims who were immigrants, to be there to support witnesses who were immigrants, and to be there simply to make sure that defendants who were immigrants got fair and appropriate treatment. There were a number of tools available. Special visas could be obtained through ICE in order to protect the people who were assisting the prosecution in bringing about prosecutions. So that is how it operated. We didn't ask for special funding, but I appointed an experienced immigration attorney who had also worked in the criminal sphere for many years, known to many of you, by the name of Caleb Arnold, to do that work. Caleb is now moved on to other very important things in the office, and we now have a woman by the name of Stephanie Costa, who is also an experienced immigration attorney who tries to cover these many bases. But, no, there has not been any sort of increase in funding. I applaud the fact that Council found some funding for the Public Defender's Office to defend people, and it has become a very, very serious issue and I'm about to tell you why this affects us in so many different ways. It is stopping immigrants from reporting crimes that are committed against them. S. S. citizen from being willing to come to court in order to provide information. And get this -- everybody take a deep breath because you're not going to believe this one -- you remember that President Trump said that this was all about keeping us safe. S. citizen. That's the reality. But every now and then an undocumented immigrant commits a terrible crime. It's a rape or it is pedophilic sexual assault or it's a homicide, something like that. Do you want to know what ICE does with those people? They deport them before we can take them to trial. That's what they do with those people. S. S. citizens, get-out-of- jail-free card for that tiny subset of immigrants who commit these terrible crimes. Every single thing that we were told about this immigration policy making us safe, it's the exact reverse. Okay. So I applaud all of you for having pushed money through for the Public Defender's Office to be able to provide some kind of representation to undocumented people who are often very unfairly and often very illegally being mistreated by this government. Part of my job, part of my sworn oath is to uphold the Constitution, laws of the United States. That means to protect people's rights, and that is something that we want to do. We are finding ways to do it within our budget, but frankly we absolutely could use more staff. Steph Costa is only one human being. There's only so much that Steph Costa can do when we have all these different assaults on our ability to do prosecution as usual, to protect victims as usual. We certainly could use additional help.
And I also want to applaud City Council for speaking with a unified voice about this being a welcoming city, this being a place where we all recognize that our ancestors with very, very, very few exceptions, and those would be indigenous ones, were all immigrants.
Time, time, time now. Pause. You had me for a moment, Larry. Harrity may speak on this. But I support everybody, right. But Plymouth Rock didn't land on us. We landed on Plymouth Rock. So we didn't come willingly. We were forced to come here and build this country. But we support everybody because we understand the role of oppression -- DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I retract my entire statement because that was a big goof.
But we support everybody though. I got your point. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Council President, you're actually right. I beg your pardon. I should have been a lot more specific about the reality of people who are forced here, which is quite different than immigration.
But we definitely understand the point in terms of fighting against -- point of information. Dr. Phillips.
We're closing out. I just want to say you're doing -- he was just about to wrap up. I give you kudos. You're doing some amazing work where you're becoming, as you said, Lawful Larry. I think it'd be great if you -- is that what you're trying to do, a new nickname? It'd be great if you start sending out a document highlighting to neighbors people you're arresting and so forth that we can share. Maybe a visual, a nicely-designed one, that we can email to different neighbors and say, this is the District -- that gang that was causing issues, do that. So I just want to help you out, help us out so we could show the city that crime, people's issues that they say is happening is going somewhere. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I agree. I thank you for that, for helping me out. And I also want to say that the phrase I heard was Larry Law or Larry Law Law. I heard that one too.
Larry Law. Okay. Thank you. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I'll take Larry Lawful though.
Council President, I'm done. Thank you so much. Thank you very much.
I just want to follow up. I was at a CVS. I saw a couple kids rob candy and stuff, run out. So I do agree with you we got to come up with different practices. But these stores are leaving our communities because they're getting robbed every single day. And so, I need to work with you closely on that. And to Member Jones' comment, that's really, really important going forward. Thank you. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I look forward to it.
Chair recognizes Councilmember Young for a very brief question, sir.
Just one question on the record. So in our district I'll say a couple weeks ago, we were out with the police and a few other departments and we were at 17th and Cumberland. There was a shooting soon after we left. A couple hours later there was a shooting in that same neighborhood where a young woman was shot in the leg and someone came out of their house, went back into their house during the shooting, came out of the house with a gun and just started shooting, I guess shooting back at people who they thought were shooting in their neighborhood. But that person who was at the house, who went back in the house, got their shotgun, was not charged with a crime. The DA's Office declined to press charges in these types of situations. I just want to know how do these types of situations help reduce gun violence in our communities? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Councilmember, I want to be able to give you the most accurate answer. Obviously, our office handles about 35,000 cases a year. This does ring a bell, but I really don't want to guess at your question. I want to be able to answer it very directly. If we have specific knowledge in the room, we may or may not, we'll give it to you now. If we don't --
If not, please. You can -- DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: No, I'll be happy to do that. Obviously, one of the issues we face in cases is it's not always clear at the inception of a case whether self-defense is real or phony defense. We don't always know that up front. And sometimes it becomes clear after further investigation. But I don't say that by way of excuse. I want to answer your question with specificity as to that particular incident. Do you have it?
Give us about a day to get some updates on that investigation on PPD's side and we'll get back to you.
Hey, Larry. So when that budget comes through, that guy right there, I know you got your whole team with you, they're probably gonna be hating on you later on though, but give that boy a raise, man, because that was just sharp right there. Oh, you talking about April 24th, 2500 block of North Colorado Street, I'll get back with you on that. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I appreciate you raising that because we do have one small addendum to our request for funding.
But overall, thank you for your time. Thank you for you and your team and all the work that all of you are doing to keep our city safe. Also to acknowledge again, individuals who are the front line day-in and day-out, to help families who have been impacted by gun violence. We know hurt people hurt people, so you have the organizations that are working with victims and co-victims of gun violence. It starts from when people are young and people are adults. Just to give an example, if somebody slights you in some type of way, are you thinking about all types of ways on how you're going to respond them, right, that perpetuates that level of one individual trying to hurt another individual and it plays out in a variety of different ways. Like when I can't get a quorum, I kind of think about all day long how I'm going to address the situation, right. That's just having fun with my members. But on the real, we thank all of you for your hard work and your dedication. Thank you very much. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Thank you very much.
Any other questions from members of the committee?
The Chair recognizes Councilman Curtis Jones for a motion that the public hearing and meeting on the bills and resolution 5 before the committee today stand in recess until Tuesday, May 5, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. in Room 400, City Hall.
It has been moved and properly seconded that the public hearing and meeting on the bills and resolution before the committee today stand in recess until Tuesday, May 5, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. in Room 400. All those in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it and the motion carries. This committee will stand in recess until Tuesday, May 5th at 10:00 a.m., at which time we will reconvene in Room 400. Thank you all very much. (Committee of the Whole concluded at 4:34 p.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I, hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence noted are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me in the foregoing matter, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. ________________________________ TANEHA CARROLL