KINGSTON – Law enforcement and elected officials Tuesday condemned the recent spate of gun violence in Ulster County.
Officials discussed the events and the need to have a gun violence dialogue in the wake of three incidents in the county, two in Kingston and one in New Paltz, as well as their closeness to the mass murders in Boulder, Colorado on Monday.
County Executive Pat Ryan said they’ve been working hard in the county with efforts such as encouraging community policing and restorative justice, but those efforts have not been enough and as officials they need to try harder.
“I want to make clear to the residents of the county who I know are feeling increasingly unsafe that we cannot, and we will not, tolerate this violence in our city and our county,” said Ryan. “Each of us as elected officials, our most solemn responsibility is to protect the safety of our residents and we have not done enough to do that and we are going to step up our game, especially to our young people that fear being pulled into this violence,” he said.
Ryan said the most troubling part about gun violence in the county, especially over the past week and year, is that many of the victims are young people.
Kingston Mayor Steve Noble said COVID, a housing crisis in the city, increased drug use, disconnectedness and lack of jobs have created an environment that drives people to commit acts of violence and that where the city, along with the county, are starting is by focusing on community level efforts. He said there are plenty of things and individuals one could blame, but rather than blame, they are focusing on initiatives.
“Everyone wants to blame someone. Blaming someone is easy to do. What’s hard to do is to get together as a community to say we have to do things differently. We have to stand together. We have to put the politics aside. We have to put the disagreements aside and we have to be able to work together to create new initiatives,” said Noble.
Two new initiatives were announced to focus on community resolutions to violence in Kingston.
The first is the Lights On Kingston program, which will begin in June and will have the high school open into the night on Friday nights, hosting a series of events and programs for young people, so they have a place to go afterschool on the weekends.
Ulster County Human Rights Commissioner Tyrone Wilson said they borrowed the idea from a similar program launched in Yonkers and that since Yonkers’ Lights On program, there have been no youth gun violence fatalities. Kingston is hoping to have a similar result and will be tracking the data of the program’s results publicly once it begins.
The second program is the relaunch of the gun buy-back program in Kingston. This time, individuals who turn in a firearm will be given a Hannaford’s gift-card where the return is scaled based on the danger of the firearm; that is, a handgun will give a higher return than a BB gun, but both would be accepted. Turning in an illegal firearm will not result in any criminal charge.
