Niagara Falls, N.Y. (WBEN) – Already this calendar year, there have been 14 homicides in the city of Niagara Falls, nine resulting from shootings and the killings represent a 300 percent increase in homicides.
As a result, local, county and federal officials have banded together to form the Niagara Falls Violent Crime Task Force that will work to prevent, investigate and prosecute violent crime in the city and across Niagara County.
"The primary focus of the task force is to get illegal guns off the streets before they're used in homicides," said Niagara Falls Police Superintendent Thomas Licata. Licata notes the task force has actually been in place for about ten days and has already resulted in the confiscation of eight guns and five arrests.
"This group, working together, is going to make a difference," says Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino. Restaino says despite some early successes, "There's more work to be done".
The formation of the task force comes at a time when demonstrators locally and nationwide are calling for defunding of police departments, but the law enforcement agencies involved with the new task force say this is not a time to retreat, but rather to step up their efforts to battle crime.
"Our purpose....is not because we're out to get you, it's because we're out to protect you," said US Attorney for Western New York J.P. Kennedy. Kennedy and the other law enforcers making up the task force agree that the majority of the community is seeking law enforcement to step-in and help, not stand back and be defunded.
