Mayor Bowser Announces New Intelligence-Led Policing Unit Focusing on Violent Crime

(Washington, DC) At present, Mayor Muriel Bowser and the Metropolitan Police Division (MPD) Chief Robert J. Contee III introduced the Violent Crime Influence Workforce (VCIT), a collaborative effort between native and federal companions to take away unlawful firearms from the neighborhood and apprehend armed criminals. The main target of VCIT is to cut back violent crime by utilizing extra intelligence-driven operations and improve our investigative skills by way of federal company partnerships.

“We can not enable folks to terrorize our communities with weapons,” mentioned Mayor Bowser. “That is about utilizing a whole-of-government method, however it’s additionally about focusing our consideration and sources on precisely the place we all know the issue is. Our message is evident – we are going to proceed to supply folks in our metropolis a greater path ahead, but when folks select to interact in violence, then they are going to be held accountable.”

The Violent Crime Influence Workforce is a joint partnership established by MPD with our federal companions on the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), and the Drug Enforcement Company (DEA). The unit’s focus contains each a tactical element and an investigative ingredient, which incorporates brokers and detectives from all businesses. MPD, particularly, might be accountable for the proactive work on the road, concentrating on the removing of unlawful firearms and violent offenders. The investigative ingredient, housed by our federal companions, will concentrate on strengthening gun arrests by way of intelligence-led investigative ways for environment friendly prosecution. MPD and our federal companions have already made drastic strides on eradicating violent offenders from our neighborhood because the creation of the VCIT. On Tuesday, March 22, 2022, members of the VCIT secured two United States District Courtroom Indictments towards two topics accountable for distributing narcotics that led to a number of deaths in Washington, DC.

“The creation of the Violent Crime Influence Workforce is one more instance of MPD and our federal companions’ dedication to rid our metropolis of unlawful firearms and criminals who select to commit mindless acts of violence in our neighborhood,” mentioned Chief Robert J. Contee III. “We all know, that regulation enforcement partnerships, intelligence-led policing and proactive collaboration result in higher outcomes. Sufficient is sufficient. Along with our regulation enforcement companions, we’re invested and proceed to make DC the most secure metropolis within the nation, and we are going to use each useful resource out there to take action.”

Along with the Violent Crime Influence Workforce, MPD continues to companion with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, the Washington Subject Workplace, and america Legal professional’s Workplace to kind the Nationwide Built-in Ballistic Info Community (NIBIN) that focuses on linking firearms from crime scenes and figuring out those that are utilizing them. With the concentrate on eradicating unlawful firearms in DC, MPD additionally recovered 439 ghost weapons in 2021 and 136, as of April 11, 2022, with the assistance of ATF’s processing facility.

Deputy Mayor for Public Security and Justice Chris Geldart additionally famous that the VCIT collaboration is part of the bigger Safer, Stronger Roadmap to handle all crime within the District and mentioned a few of the different efforts within the ecosystem together with the not too long ago introduced Folks of Promise initiative the place residents who’re weak to committing violent acts are being matched with service groups comprised of workers from a number of District businesses.

“We’ve got a strategic plan to handle crime in our metropolis, together with violent crime, that was applied in 2016, and the info exhibits that earlier than the pandemic, we had been making progress,” mentioned Deputy Mayor Geldart. “Now that we’ve got reopened and are returning to a way of normalcy, we should work to revive our sense of neighborhood values along with guaranteeing correct police enforcement.”

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