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Integrated Firearms Violence Reduction Strategy
The U.S. Attorney's Office includes several major metropolitan areas: San Francisco, Oakland, Richmond, San Jose, Santa Rosa, and San Rafael. These cities suffer from drug-trafficking, drive-by shootings, and gang related crime. While crime continues to drop in these cities and in this District as it does throughout the country, police departments in our district's major cities have identified the continuing presence of gun-related problems. In response, this Office has adopted a number of strategies to combat the threat of gun violence, beginning with a commitment to aggressive enforcement of federal firearm laws. The commitment includes continuing active support of existing task forces in the District which focus on street crime including High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area ("HIDTA"), the East Bay Corridor working group, Weed and Seed, S.A.F.E. HUD Task Force on Public Housing Projects, and the U.S. Marshal's Fugitive Task Force. In addition, the Office has publicized Triggerlock II/Project Exile to all state and local law enforcement agencies and District Attorneys' Offices in the District so that every gun case that should be prosecuted is prosecuted in state or federal court.
This Office also actively supports community organizations' efforts to reduce access to firearms and gun-related violence. We have established a marketing campaign for Triggerlock II/Project Exile, in coordination with civic organizations, so that the public is aware of the gun enforcement program and is encouraged to report illegal gun possession. The Office works with counties, cities, towns, and owners of multi-unit complexes including public housing, to adopt resolutions of their commitment to eliminate and report illegal gun possession and gun-related violence in their respective areas.
In coordination with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms ("BATF"), the Office is working to ensure that federal firearms licensees require the appropriate form to be completed before a background check is initiated on a firearms transaction, and to identify and prosecute individuals who attempt to purchase firearms but are rejected in the background check process for making false statements in the application process. Also in coordination with the BATF, the District is tracing recovered firearms through existing databases and sharing that data with state and law enforcement as appropriate.
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