Depending on whether your data will eventually span multiple years you may want to either add DATEPART(year, Date_occur) or add a WHERE condition if it is important to determine which...

You beat me to it, Dan. I was just going to suggest using the TOP keyword.

Try this one:

SELECT [ID], Message, Date_and_Time

FROM <Table Name>

WHERE Date_and_Time >= CONVERT(DATETIME, '20060501')

If your table is indexed on Date_and_Time, this should be able to use that index.