NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Four communities in New York and New Jersey are a part of the federal government’s new Operation Overdrive initiative launch which aims to combat drug-related violent crime and overdose deaths, the Drug Enforcement Agency announced on Monday.
The Bronx and Buffalo as well as Camden and Newark, New Jersey are amongst the 34 cities across the country where phase 1 of the new program will be piloted.
Operation Overdrive, which launched on Feb. 1, uses a “data-driven, intelligence-led approach to identify and dismantle criminal drug networks operating in areas with the highest rates of violence and overdoses.”
The 34 communities represent the results of an intricate mapping done by the DEA where the agency identified areas with the highest rates of drug crime and overdoses. The federal government then partnered with local and state law enforcement to begin enforcement operations in the targeted communities.
“The consequences of drug trafficking have become evidently clear in New York, increased overdoses, crime, and violence," said New York DEA Acting Special Agent in Charge Timothy Foley. "While we will continue to target the world’s most prolific drug traffickers, DEA will initiate Operation Overdrive in two cities: Buffalo, New York and New York City. By working with our law enforcement partners, DEA utilizes its many resources to seize illegal drugs and guns from the streets and remove violent drug organizations from neighborhoods within these cities.”
The efforts come as a result of troubling drug-related statistics in the country. In the last year, the DEA reported more than 100,000 drug overdose deaths which equates to about 275 deaths per day.
On the crime front, 2020 saw a record 30% increase in homicides with 77% of those murders comitted with a firearm.
“DEA’s objective is clear,” said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram. “DEA will bring all it has to bear to make our communities safer and healthier, and to reverse the devastating trends of drug-related violence and overdoses plaguing our Nation. The gravity of these threats requires a data-driven approach to pinpoint the most dangerous networks threatening our communities, and leveraging our strongest levers across federal, state, and local partners to bring them down.”
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