Troopers help during Biden visit
Area police mourn officer and deputy killed in ambush
ALBANY — In the wake of a shooting last week in which a man killed a Syracuse police officer and an Onondaga County sheriff’s deputy, state troopers helped provide security in and around the city of Syracuse for President Joe Biden’s visit there Thursday afternoon to tout a preliminary agreement with Micron to provide up to $6.14 billion in federal aid.
Biden had faced criticism from the Syracuse department’s police union and some Republicans for declining to reschedule his event, where he will join Gov. Kathy Hochul and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer to highlight the funding from the
CHIPS and Science Act.
The funerals for Syracuse police Officer Michael Jensen, 29, and sheriff’s Lt. Michael Hoosock, 37, were held Saturday and Monday, respectively.
Biden’s visit took place 11 days after the officers were killed in an ambush when 33-year-old Christopher Murphy, who police said was intoxicated and had deliberately provoked a confrontation with police, emerged from his parents’ home in Salina armed with an AR-15 and fired more than two dozen rounds, killing two of the officers who had responded.
Syracuse Police Benevolent Association spokesman Joe Moran told the Washington Examiner that the president’s visit, which requires enormous manpower from state and local law enforcement agencies, is occurring during what has “probably been the worst week in our lives for each and every one of us.”
“I’m shocked that President
Biden says federal grants and Micron is more important than the death of two police officers,” Moran told the newspaper. “Either he’s underestimating … the impact that this has had on our members or he just doesn’t care.”
At the time Moran made those statements, Biden’s office had not yet announced they he hoped to meet with the families of the fallen officers while visiting Syracuse.
Syracuse police Chief Joseph Cecile issued a statement this week saying the department did not ask Biden to postpone his visit.
“We did, however, in early conversations with the Secret Service, express our concern about (Syracuse Police Department’s) capacity to adequately cover this detail, as we were grieving the loss of two fallen officers — Syracuse Police Officer Michael Jensen and Onondaga County Sheriff Deputy Lt. Michael Hoosock — and planning their services,” Cecile said. “Having said that, we are now fully engaged with Secret Service and all of our local law enforcement partners to ensure the president’s visit is seamless.”
The chief added that members of special units and command staff were working on the protective detail but other officers would only be doing so voluntarily. Normally they would also be directed to work
on the detail.
“Once again, I’d like to thank our law enforcement partners, and primarily the New York State Police, for offering personnel to this detail and thereby reducing the number of (Syracuse police) officers required to work,” Cecile said.
The federal aid is expected to help develop two CHIP fab plans in the town of Clay, which is Syracuse’s largest suburb. Micron is also receiving federal aid from the Department of Commerce grant for another CHIP fab plant in Boise, Idaho. The White House said the aid is the “first step towards Micron’s investment of up to $125 billion across both states over the next two decades to build a leading-edge memory manufacturing ecosystem.”