 good afternoon folks we're going to get started first however I want to thank our partners for being here I also want to thank you all for it for being here getting the word out on this important issue I believe is going to help us make a positive impact in the safety of our community so to the US acting US attorney Matt Kerch thank you very much for for being here David Booth from the ATF also Mike Mills from Metro Denver Crime Stoppers thank you couldn't do this without you and somebody who really has demonstrated his unwavering support for our community keeping our community safe being focused on victims being focused on preventing crime is the mayor of Denver Mayor Michael Hancock who will come up and have some brief remarks thank you all for being here and I want to start by thanking our Chief Chief Paul Payson for his leadership and for bringing together key stakeholders to collaborate on how we keep our neighborhoods safe I also want to thank ATF and the US Attorney's Office and the District Attorney's Office for for being here and being our partners in this critical effort just this week during my state of city address I acknowledged a continuing challenge of the post-pandemic rise in violent crime in Denver the real reality is that we were seeing a violent a rise in violent crime before the pandemic and the pandemic exacerbated what we were seeing and continue to see even today I also said we must find a balance we must find a balance between need of reforms and maintaining public safety for all our residents because one cannot and should not come at the expense of the other the legal the illegal use and possession of firearms threatens that balance exposes flaws in our justice system and exacerbates an already challenging time for our law enforcement officers and of course the tenuous ride and strive towards safety for everyone in our community we know it's going to take a coordinated multi-agency approach to get these these guns and the felons who use them to reoffend off our streets we're no strangers to working with our federal partners to solve crime in Denver Colorado and to help stop the scourge or whatever we're trying to stop they have been enormously helpful so as a community we cannot we will not tolerate it tolerate the prohibited use of guns by convicted violent felons in our city this initiative that the chief will be announcing in just a moment are aimed at the greatest consequences of the most serious of those offenders and so I'm proud to be here to stand with our police chief and with our federal partners and I applaud the Denver Police Department for leading the nation in reforms and working to expand the alternative police response options where we can in our city chief Payson has been a leader and recognized national leader on these efforts as well as creative innovative solutions and steps toward preventing gun violence and preventing those guns from getting into the hands of violent offenders and making sure we bring the bear the full weight of the justice system to deal with it and so thank you chief for having me and I look forward to joining everyone in hearing what this new initiative is about so thank you mayor it's no secret that violent crime is on the rise gun related crime is on the rise in our city we cannot become numb to this gun violence we cannot normalize this gun violence and the status quo is not acceptable and that is why we are announcing this enhanced partnership in order to address individuals who are committing these violent acts in our community we are here to announce the creation of a new investigative team that includes the ATF and a Denver police officer this enhanced partnership will focus on violent felons who carry firearms these are the individuals who are the most likely contributors to violence in our city we also want to put violent felons on notice if you choose to illegal possess or use a firearm in Denver we will do everything within our authority to ensure you face the greatest penalties the new investigative team will work together they'll respond to investigations in progress and assist our officers on scene to gather that evidence and ensure that the reporting mechanism is as solid as possible these cases will be reviewed for possession of a weapon by a previous offender or what we refer to as palpose for prosecution either by the Denver district attorney's office or the United States just excuse me the United States attorney's office for the district of Colorado prioritizing these cases for consideration of filing on the most serious available charges based on the connections to the shootings whether the crime occurred in one of our hotspots one of our five crime hotspots or the likelihood of future violent activity these efforts will complement the courageous ongoing work of our officers who are recovering illegal guns and making these types of arrests so to date the Denver police department and our officers have recovered 1170 firearms this year I repeat 1170 firearms have been taken off the streets in Denver this year what does that mean that's 26% increase over the three-year baseline not 2021 versus a pandemic year but against the three-year baseline at 26% increase in recovering these weapons that are causing the most harm to our community our officers have also to date made 415 arrests for prohibited possession of firearms these palpo arrests this year alone what does that mean that's a 48% increase over the three-year baseline we cannot accept the status quo we have to innovate we have to look for solutions in order to keep our community safe the Metro Denver Crime Stoppers the ATF and the Denver Police Department are also partnering on billboards the sign that you see to my right will be prominently posted on billboards in our five hotspots it is critical that we get our community support with that we get tips from the community to help us address illegal gun activity to address all crime activity and so we would encourage folks to utilize the ATF tip line as well as the very effective crime stoppers tip line to report this type of activity that said I'd like to introduce a critical partner in this special agent in charge of the Denver ATF office David Booth good afternoon everyone I'm David Booth on the ATF agent who's the special agent in charge for the ATF Denver Field Division we have a long standing relationship with the Denver Police Department as well as many other organizations in the in the region including crime stoppers our partnership has included such successes like NIBIN the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network or Raven which is the regional anti-violence enforcement network these programs would not be the successes they are without the support of the United States Attorney's Office as well as the Denver District Attorney's Office today I'm proud to join our partners to announce yet another element of this partnership which Chief Hazen just spoke about and what I the message I'd like to pass on to to Denver is that folks this is your community this is your police department this is your ATF and we're gonna use everything we can at our disposal to remove these violent people from our community with that I'd like to turn it over to acting United States Attorney Matt Kirsch thanks David my name is Matt Kirsch I am the acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Colorado I want to tell you all a little bit more about the partnership that everybody's been talking about today this is really the next evolution of a targeted violent crime strategy that we've already been using in Denver and the surrounding area and that has in fact been adopted as a nationwide model as a part of the Department of Justice's Project Safe Neighborhoods program this strategy is not based on a sort of traditional model of simply increasing the number of federal prosecutions that we might bring instead this strategy focuses federal law enforcement resources to bring federal charges against the most dangerous criminals in Denver who are operating in the most dangerous places in Denver the strategy uses data from police reports from gunshot location technologies from the Niven technology that David Booth just referred to to focus law enforcement efforts on criminals who are most likely to be possessing and using guns what the new effort today adds into that mix is data about where the most violent crimes are occurring as well as other on the ground intelligence from DPD officers and the additional investigative efforts to develop potential federal cases that you heard Chief Payson described all of that is going to further focus law enforcement's efforts on the most dangerous people those people who are using guns to commit crimes the file review that you heard Chief Payson described is going to occur for every felon arrested with a gun in Denver an attorney from my office is going to do that in conjunction with an attorney from the Denver district attorney's office as a result of that review we're going to determine which office can bring charges that will best incapacitate the people who've been arrested with guns and when federal charges are the most likely to accomplish that goal we are not going to hesitate to vigorously pursue those charges let me give you just one example of the kind of case in which the strategies worked in the past my office recently prosecuted a person named Ryan Little John Connor Mr. Little John Connor was a leader in the atray Cripps gang here in Denver and he ran out into a parking lot and fired 12 shots at two people who he was chasing away in the middle of this crowded parking lot he hit one of the people who he was actually shooting at in the back of the head although did not kill him and one of the other shots that he fired went into the middle of one of the nearby apartments it went into the bathroom where the occupants the apartments occupant happened to be sleeping in in the bed right next to that bathroom through a combination of evidence including video surveillance and shell casings that were recovered by DPD there at the scene we were able to prosecute and convict Mr. Little John Connor for being a felon in possession of ammunition one of the federal charges that we expect to be using as a part of this initiative and just last month he was sentenced to serve 84 months in the federal Bureau of Prisons so I'm really pleased on behalf of the US Attorney's Office to be able to continue to work with the Denver Police Department and the ATF and all of our other federal and state law enforcement partners to continue this effort of identifying and prosecuting the most violent people in Denver that we can thanks again I want to thank each of you for being here for sharing this message we want these violent felons to know exactly what this partnership is all about and that we are working together with the Denver District Attorney's Office the ATF the US Attorney's Office and Crime Stoppers in order to hold them accountable thank you for being here we can open it up for a few questions so a little bit about the the team so we have identified an ATF agent that will be partnered with a Denver police officer they've been working together for about three weeks now they've gotten additional training on these types of issues and they will respond if we have a shooting that occurs within our city patrol officers will respond to that as well as our crime gun response team these two officers an ATF agent and a police officer to help facilitate that investigation right we don't want to have the worst of the worst this could be this person could be identified as the worst individual with a high propensity for violence we want to make sure that we gather all of the evidence appropriate that the interview takes place so we have those options of filing this either in the Denver District Attorney's Office or the US Attorney's Office again based on the likelihood of future criminal activity and or in our five hot spots so this enhanced partnership is actually providing this team as well as providing additional training this team is going out to each one of the districts to the roll calls making sure that all of our officers know and understand what it takes in order to have successful prosecution further down the road it it's a an officer who's got a lot of experience worked on a high profile case with the ATF recently has some great experience the ATF agent has some great experience as well she adds our officer adds a lot of value to this and we're very proud that there was a selection process and glad to have her on the team correct that's part that's that's the the crime gun response team we're partnering these folks together and they will physically respond to these shooting calls and assist and the one team both and and you heard acting US Attorney Kirsch talk about it the worst of the worst right we want to make sure that these violent felons these these folks that are prohibited from possessing firearms that are creating the most harm in our community that they're held accountable and we want to make sure that we have those options in order to do this this gives us the greatest opportunity for success right at the beginning of that call and this enhanced partnership with the DA's office US Attorney's ATF and then again the community the community lets us know what's going on we would encourage folks to report illegal gun activity in all crimes through the ATF tip line and through our partners at Metro Denver Crime Stoppers as well so ATF we have this great partnership with Raven as David spoke of here with the US Attorney's Office reviewing these cases for possible federal charges on it this enhances that partnership this puts that additional resource on scene at the time of the shooting that gives us the greatest opportunity for success even in the Denver District Attorney's office this gives us an opportunity to have stronger cases locally if it meets the criteria that Matt discussed right the worst of the worst that's what we need to get off the streets violent felons that are indiscriminately pulling triggers and creating great harm within our community we need to put them on notice that that is not going to be tolerated that this community will not stand for that and we are going to work collaboratively in order to address these individuals so there we want to get the worst of the worst off the street if that's somebody that's in the hot spot that is great if it's somebody that we think has high propensity for violence in the future and we're gonna again triage this in conjunction with the district attorney's office and the US Attorney's Office so so excellent question and it is something that we had discussions about and I'm gonna take a step back here for a second right you know you heard the mayor announce the five hot spots in Denver five locations relatively small geographic makeup 1.5 per six 1.56 percent of our landmass that count for 49 percent of our shootings and 26 percent of our homicides right the the scholars the academics the researchers they'll they talk about hot spots and hot people I don't know if this is something that you're familiar with this gives us an opportunity to focus on those hot people the worst of the worst and figuring out where the most appropriate filing will take place we did have the discussions on place-based and we certainly will review everything to make sure that we're on solid legal ground that's exactly why we're creating this crime response team so that way every eye is dotted every T is crossed right from the beginning so I don't want to get too far into the weeds on this but backgrounds convictions have a big part of that as well Julia typically DOJ has a policy that prohibits prosecution for the same conduct if if a person has already been prosecuted in state court but there are cases there are inappropriate cases we can seek a waiver of that policy there are some cases that are going to arise as a result of this initiative that the Denver DA's office is simply going to be better at prosecuting that if it's if a murder happens and is provable the Denver DA's office is going to be better at they have we don't even have a federal murder statute unless it occurs right against a federal employee or on federal land so that case is going to go to the Denver DA's office there may be instances where some portion of the case might fit better in state court and some portion in the case might fit better in federal court we just have to make that determination on a case by case basis in general we have to consider we have to look at what the federal law enforcement interest is and whether or not it has been appropriately vindicated by the state prosecution if it hasn't then that's when that was what would cause us to seek a waiver I'm I am aware of a few other cities where the ATF works very closely with a local police department in order to try to develop cases like this I'm not saying that it hasn't happened in other places but I'm not aware of other locations where there is a response team that involves the ATF and a local police department like you've heard about today we're gonna measure it by figuring out whether or not we can successfully prosecute people who have been responsible for violent crimes in Denver if we if we can do that then we'll consider it a success no like I said we're I think it's a mistake to try to focus on the number of prosecutions as opposed to focusing on the quality of the prosecutions that's what this initiative is about so there's a lot of nuance in what we were talking about today right when we're explaining what this team's doing how it's responding the difference between the DA cases and the difference between the US Attorney office cases this gives us as I believe Matt said this is the next evolution this gives us the greatest opportunity for success going further upstream holding people accountable before they commit these violent acts these individuals that are prohibited from owning or possessing firearms holding them accountable through both the Denver District Attorney's office and the US Attorney's office we believe that this will help us reduce the shootings reduce the homicides that have occurred within our city and help us keep our city safe and that's what we're focusing on here the next evolution doing something that's innovative not accepting the status quo not becoming numb or tolerating violence within our community and we're very excited that we have this type of partnership to give us the opportunity to keep our city safe and part of it is the messaging we want these violent felons to know that this team is working together to hold them accountable so thank you so this is this will be the last question I'm sorry I'm trying to be respectful of our partners times so we are we analyze each one of these cases major crimes does deep dives we look at solvability we look at cases that are solved and look for those underlying causal factors what we are seeing this year that is unique to years past is of the the five most recent homicides four of which there was a nexus to narcotics dealing you know some sort of transaction there the previous 10 five or six of those there was a direct nexus to narcotics typically 2020 for example the number one causal factor was some sort of dispute some sort of disagreement that escalated into a shooting this year 2021 we're seeing an increase with that narcotics nexus so we're focused on that we are aware of it we've made some changes to some of the staffing down in these areas and we'll continue to evaluate it but we also think that this initiative partnering together with the ATF partnering together with both the district attorney's office and the US attorney's office to hold the worst of the worst accountable will help us start to mitigate this violence and start to reduce the violence in our city in all areas the five hotspots as well as anywhere that this takes place so thank you all again for spreading the word on this very important initiative we appreciate it