Posted by Tina
The President vowed to enforce America’s laws.Today he sent 20 additional ATF agents to Chicago to combat the gang violence that terrorizes neighborhoods and has resulted in staggering minority youth murders.
The ATF agents are working with about 20 counterparts from the Chicago Police Department and Illinois State Police on a strike force whose mission is to solve shootings and hunt down gun traffickers through ballistics technology.
Prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s office and Cook County state’s attorney’s office have been assigned to the force to decide whether suspects in gun crimes should be charged in state or federal court.
“The goal is the prosecute as many of these guys as possible federally where they will serve longer prison terms,” said Anthony Riccio, head of the Chicago Police Department’s organized crime unit.
The strike force is operating on intelligence gathered from the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network, ATF’s digital catalogue of the unique marks created when bullets are fired — like fingerprints for guns.
Unlike previous missions that lasted a few months this task force is in it for the long haul. They certainly have their work cut out for them:
The pace of murders in 2017 has continued unabated from last year, which ended with about 760 killings and was the deadliest year in the city in two decades. There were 320 murders in Chicago through Thursday, compared with 322 over the same period of 2016, according to the police department.
A grim situation. Undoubtedly the effort to combat drug, arms and human trafficking and gangs will also help to ensure improvement. Good news for the people of Chicago and elsewhere in America.