ATF to lead task force aimed at reducing gun violence
Acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew G. Whitaker was in Memphis on Wednesday to announce a new Memphis Crime Gun Strike Force, lead by the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives with officers from the Memphis Police Department.
It’s a new initiative that along with others already in place is intended to combat the growing number of gun crimes in Memphis.
“The strike force will allow us to increase the focus of our investigations on those actively engaged in gun violence the trigger pullers and the gun traffickers who supply them,” Whitaker said. “That will enhance our capacity to investigate the criminals and organizations who operate across districts and across state borders.”
It will also work with the U.S. Department of Justice and Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich to ensure violent firearm offenders are “identified, investigated and prosecuted,” Whitaker said.
The strike force will initially utilize five ATF agents and one supervisor, but more agents and law enforcement officers will be added over time, he said
It will be housed at ATF offices, but will eventually move to it own space, he said.
Whitaker was joined in making the announcement by D. Michael Dunavant, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Tennessee.
The room was packed with officials that included Weirich, Memphis Police Director Michael Rallings, Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner and Bill Gibbons, the former DA now executive director of the Public Safety Institute at the University Memphis.
There were also retired federal judges, representatives from law enforcement agencies across the county and the Mid-South, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Secret Service and the U.S Postal Inspection Service Inspectors.
Before making the announcement, Whitaker praised the work of local officials in their collaborative efforts to arrest and prosecute violent criminals, but called out the 7 percent nationwide increase in crime from 2014 to 2016, after two decades of “historic decreases in crime.”
The increase includes an 8 percent increase in assaults, a 13 percent increase in rapes and a 21 percent increase in murders, Whitaker said.
Here in Memphis, murder went up 40 percent, he said.
“In 2016 there were nearly 200 homicides in Memphis. That means that nearly 40 percent of all homicides in Tennessee happened right here in Memphis,” Whitaker said
However, those trends have been reversed since President Donald Trump took office, he said.
“Here in Memphis, working together on a state, local and federal levels, gun crimes went down 17 percent for the first nine months of this year, murders went down 17 percent, robberies went down 12 percent, rapes went down 18 percent and domestic violence incidents went down 11 percent,” he said. “Those are good trends and everyone in this room deserves credit for it.”
Whitaker did not say the strike force will be awarded any additional funding or when it would get to work.
This was just the announcement and within a week or so, there will be more information will be made available, said Michael Knight, ATF public information officer.
Going forward, the strike force will work with other crime reduction programs, like Project Safe Neighborhoods, he said.