NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Mayor Bill de Blasio announced members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will be working shoulder to shoulder with the NYPD to get guns off the streets following a spike in murders and shootings, including the death of a 10-year old boy in Queens over the weekend.
The mayor notes it's the first time in the U.S. that the federal agency tasked with enforcing gun laws has partnered with a local police department.
"And it means we're going to have ATF agents directly embedded in the NYPD, working together to find guns and quickly act on the information that they find to stop the flow of guns," de Blasio said during his daily briefing Tuesday. "This is the leading edge, this is the part of the federal government that finds the guns, gets them out of the hands of bad guys and keeps communities safe. We know that gun trafficking must be attacked on a national level and the ATF leads the way."
The ATF said the partnership will use the most up-to-date tools to remove illegal wepaons and reduce crime.
Together the agencies created the Crime Gun Intelligence Center to get to the source of illegal guns, according to John DeVito, the special agent in charge for the ATF in New York State.
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"For those offenders, specifically, it's not a matter of if, but when we will come calling," he said.
"Every gun tells a story, every bullet tells a story, every shell casing tells a story, and ATF technology helps us bring that all together," said John Miller, the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism.
Shootings have nearly doubled from 358 in 2020 to 602 in the first five months of this year.
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