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Video Transcript

Public Affairs
Kelly, part of what you oversee as an Assistant Special Agent in Charge in Seattle is our Violent Crime Program. And I think people may associate violent crime in the FBI as working bank robberies. Can you maybe expand on that a little bit for us?

FBI Seattle ASAC, Criminal Branch
Sure. Well, that's a long lore of Bureau legend. The days of Bonnie and Clyde and bank robberies were the big way to make big money. In this day and age, probably the biggest way to steal a large amount of money from a bank is probably through fraud and deception. The FBI has transitioned our Violent Crime Program to look at the individuals that are most responsible for violent crime in our communities and what is causing the most public safety issue.

FBI Seattle ASAC, Criminal Branch
So when we address violent crime, we're often looking at criminal organizations. We do see street crime. That's the manifestation of a violent crime or drug trafficking organization. But our goal is to work complex investigations, often using Title IIIs or federal wiretaps, to enable us to arrest everyone involved in an organization. As you can imagine, if we take off the lowest level person in a criminal organization, they'll be quickly replaced.

FBI Seattle ASAC, Criminal Branch
But if we can take down a whole organization at once, we've effectively wiped out the effectiveness of that organization and their ability to cause a danger to public safety.

Public Affairs
Well, that sounds like a huge job. Is this something the FBI tackles by itself in a city?

FBI Seattle ASAC, Criminal Branch
Typically, no. Those those cases result or require a task force environment. Often we were working with the Seattle Police Department, the King County Sheriff's Department, our other federal law enforcement partners to put together a team because a case like that will require eight to 10 to 12 investigators at any given time to truly be effective and to truly take down the largest organizations.

Public Affairs
So besides violent organizations like you're describing, what other kind of violations would fall under the violent crime program that people might not even consider?

FBI Seattle ASAC, Criminal Branch
So often, a lot of the crime that we see on our Indian reservations in Washington State, we do see a large volume of violent crime. But one of the other things that people may not be aware of is crime on the high seas or crimes aboard aircraft. We often see bad behavior by passengers that are in a confined space and that can include assaults, that can include sexual assaults.

FBI Seattle ASAC, Criminal Branch
And that is the largest kind of ancillary area that the public might generally not be aware of that the FBI has investigative responsibility for.

Public Affairs
It sounds like a huge task and has got to be very difficult when you're running a branch to try to assign investigators to work what I would think are so many crimes out there, too many for what we have to do.

FBI Seattle ASAC, Criminal Branch
Yeah, often we have to prioritize. Simply, there's more work out there than we can ever address. And that's one of the things I think the public would be proud to see, is that law enforcement agencies, contrary to what you see, we generally don't fight over cases because there's more work to do. Washington State is one of the most understaffed law enforcement states in the country.

FBI Seattle ASAC, Criminal Branch
We are 51, if you count the District of Columbia, 51 out of 51 for law enforcement staffing. So although our folks are extremely dedicated and those of our partner agencies are dedicated, there's plenty of work for us to go around. And then we have to prioritize the targets. And in the violent crime arena, we generally do that based on the risk to the public.

Public Affairs
Thank you so much.