Attorney general touts anti-crime initiative
Agents aided in 1,400 arrests, Barr says
WASHINGTON — Attorney General William Barr announced Wednesday that authorities have made more than 1,400 arrests as a part of “Operation Legend,” a Justice Department anti-crime initiative that has raised some contention because it coincided with a separate federal response to violence at racial-justice demonstrations.
Barr made the announcement at a news conference in Kansas City, Mo., where the Justice Department first opened the operation in July. The initiative, which dispatched more than 1,000 federal agents to help local law enforcement agencies investigate violent crime, has since been expanded to eight other U.S. cities: Chicago; Albuquerque, N.M.; Cleveland; Detroit; Milwaukee; St. Louis; Memphis and Indianapolis.
Local law enforcement agencies often work with federal authorities to investigate all manner of crimes.
But President Donald Trump announced its expansion last month just as tension hit a boiling point between protesters and federal law enforcement officers in Portland, Ore., and he took aim at Democratic leaders who he said were failing to keep their cities safe.
Local officials, including some in the cities where federal agents were being sent, said they felt the move was a political stunt. Even inside federal law enforcement agencies,
some officials feared Trump was improperly conflating the violent-crime initiative with the response to protests.
Barr said at the news conference Wednesday that he worried 2020 could be a bad year for violent crime and pointed to what he viewed as a variety of causes, including courts releasing violent offenders rather than holding them without bail, “pent-up aggression prompted by state and local quarantine orders” and “the efforts that we’ve recently seen to demonize police and to defund their work.”
“Operation Legend is the heart of the federal government’s response to this upturn in violent crime,” Barr said.
In a news release, the Justice Department said that, of those arrested, more than 200 had been charged with federal crimes, most for alleged drug and weapons offenses. Others were taken into custody for violating state and local laws, the department said.
Barr said at the news conference that more than 90 “suspected killers” had been taken off the streets. The operation was named after 4-yearold LeGend Taliferro, who was fatally shot in Kansas City in late June. Police made an arrest in that case last week.