Albany County DA seeks support of county legislators to change 'Raise the Age'

ALBANY, N.Y. (WRGB) — The Albany County District Attorney David Soares is sounding the alarm on the recent violence in his county, specifically involving the youth in the city of Albany.

On Thursday, Soares, a democrat, spoke before county legislators to try and rally support, asking that they join him in calling for a complete overhaul of ‘Raise the Age’, changes he has long been an outspoken advocate of.

The latest example he used was a deadly shooting that happened over the weekend where the teenage suspect had many brush in’s with the law before.

“We witnessed the murder of a young man at the hands of another young man that had gone through the family court Raise the Age process and was a beneficiary there at a minimum of three times,” Soares told legislators.

On July 22, a 21-year old man was shot and killed on Morton Avenue near Elizabeth Street. Just days later, a 17-year old was charged for the crime.

MORE: Suspect in Morton Avenue homicide in custody

Soares explained to county legislators how he feels ‘Raise the Age’ runs on a broken system that provides no consequences or rehabilitation. He believes this is leading to an uptick in juvenile repeat offenders.

“The basis for ‘Raise the Age’ is this notion that young 16-17 year olds have underdeveloped minds which we can all agree that's true, but if you do not have in place strategic intervention that deals with behavior then what are we doing? We’re just releasing these young kids with underdeveloped minds with glocks,” said Soares.

According to data provided to CBS 6 by the DA’s office, in Albany County, there have been 21 violent felony charges filed against 18 underaged suspects from May to July this year. The DA says out of those 18 people, 12 have been re-arrested.

“With no offense to all the people who work in family court, this was a system that was never designed to handle or deal with violent, super, super, violent youth,” said Soares.

In 2018, the state passed its ‘Raise the Age’ law, which increased the age of automatic adult criminal accountability from 16 to 18 years old. Since then, Soares has called on the state legislature and governor to make changes to the law.

He wants support from the Albany County Legislature so they can help him advocate for change on the state level.

Albany County Legislator Wanda Willingham (D), who represents the county’s 3rd Legislative District, tells CBS 6’s Briana Supardi that she agrees some changes need to be made to the law, but that we have to remember why ‘Raise the Age’ was passed to begin with.

“In order for us to begin to collaborate with him (Soares), to try to explain why we want those changes, he’s going to have to give us more than just numbers. We have to be able to address the conditions that made the people in New York City and downstate pass that legislation because they were the ones who were the true advocates for it,” said Willingham.

While talking about the teenage suspect charged for the shooting on Morton Avenue, Soares said to the legislators, “And we will be dealing with the issue tomorrow in Albany County Courthouse.”

During an interview afterwards, CBS 6’s Briana Supardi asked the DA about the statement. He said to “pay very close attention to what is happening in the Albany County Judicial Building tomorrow.”

When asked if he could elaborate, he said he couldn’t.