Law Enforcement Agencies Join Forces to Prevent Violent Crime in Huntsville

HUNTSVILLE– A task force established to prevent violent crime in the City of Huntsville held its inaugural meeting today at the Huntsville Police Department, announced U.S. Attorney Jay E. Town and Huntsville Police Chief Mark McMurray.

The Huntsville Public Safety Task Force is an effort between the United States Attorney’s Office and the Huntsville Police Department to develop a strategic plan for preventing violent crime in the City of Huntsville and the metro area.  Joining Town and McMurray on the task force are representatives of the Mayor’s Office, Madison County Sheriff’s Office, Madison County District Attorney’s Office, Madison Police Department, Decatur Police Department, Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles, Huntsville Housing Authority, and the federal law enforcement agencies FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives, Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Marshals Service and Homeland Security Investigations. 

“The formation of this Task Force marks the beginning of a strategic partnership between federal, state and local law enforcement to utilize enhanced crime intelligence to aggressively pursue the worst offenders in our city,” Town said.  “The Task Force provides a needed platform to target alpha criminals for prosecution in the forum where the sanction is the highest, remove them from our streets with severe punishment, and return our communities back to their rightful owners...the law abiding citizens. Bed space in state and federal prisons awaits.”

“The HPSTF will be a great enhancement in our fight against violent criminals not only in our city but in North Alabama, McMurray said.”   “Our Mission in this Task Force will be to systematically remove the most violent criminals and repeat offenders from the top down.” “The criminal intelligence derived from this list of repeat violent offenders will remain law enforcement sensitive information.”  “This multi-agency relationship with federal authorities will greatly enhance sentencing these offenders and keep our city safe.”  “We appreciate and look forward to working with Jay Town and his office in making this a success for everyone involved.”

“Huntsville is one of the safest cities in the country, and we want to keep it that way,” said Mayor Tommy Battle. “We are pleased to work proactively and collaboratively with our law enforcement partners in this initiative. It sends a powerful message to criminals – we won’t tolerate violent behavior, and we will find you, prosecute you, and put you in prison.”

The task force incorporates principles of Project Safe Neighborhoods which is the Department of Justice’s violent crime reduction strategy.  By these agencies working together, it allows the task force to have a comprehensive utilization of multi-level resources to plan, collect, process, analyze and disseminate information among each other and to make targeting and capturing key offenders easier. Each agency will have an operational expectation unique to their department with the collective goal of producing useful intelligence on the worst criminal elements so that investigations can yield successful prosecutions in the jurisdiction where the punishment is the most significant.  This allows the community and its citizens to enjoy the absence of these worst offenders for the longest possible time without reprisal. 

Reinvigorated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions last year, PSN is a nationwide Department of Justice program committed to reducing violent crime by networking law enforcement agencies. PSN also provides funding to local and state agencies to assist them with departmental or agency operational needs.  United States Attorney Town is the lone U.S. Attorney on the national Violent Crimes Reduction Coordinating Committee, which oversees the PSN program. 

https://www.al.com/news/2018/10/north-alabama-task-force-targets-the-most-violent-criminals-and-repeat-offenders.html