Mayor, WPD, Delaware AG and US Attorney Announce Enhanced Efforts to Track Illegal Guns and Deter and Prevent Gun Crimes

February 16, 2022

Wilmington Mayor Mike Purzycki and Police Chief Robert J. Tracy today joined Delaware Attorney General Kathleen Jennings and United States Attorney David Weiss to announce an expansion of the Wilmington Police Department’s (WPD) GunStat initiative, focusing additional multi-agency resources on removing guns from City streets. The goal of the enhanced effort is to arrest, prosecute, and jail individuals who commit violent gun crimes and possess guns illegally.

“Even with a record number of guns being seized annually by the WPD and their law enforcement partners, additional coordinated efforts are needed to stop the proliferation of guns in Wilmington,” said Mayor Mike Purzycki. “The City, State, and Federal governments will combine forces in an unprecedented way to track down the guns and the people who use these weapons as well as those who bring guns into Wilmington illegally. Those breaking the law will be prosecuted and sent to prison. We want them off our streets and out of our City,” the Mayor continued. “I thank Attorney General Jennings and U.S. Attorney Weiss as well as all of our law enforcement agency partners for their ongoing support of this enhanced initiative.”

Chief Tracy said GunStat is an expansion of the WPD’s CompStat methodology, which uses data-driven management tools to ensure accountability and the efficient deployment of police resources based upon crime trends and data. “In its enhanced form,” said Chief Tracy, “the WPD’s GunStat will use a targeted prosecution approach to track and deter gun crimes and detain and prosecute known firearm offenders, so they do not have the opportunity to return to the streets to foment violence.”

“By building on this existing, evidence-based strategy, our partners across the criminal justice system will be able to issue a renewed warning to those engaged in gun violence – and those who illegally carry firearms – that their actions will have consequences,” said the Chief. “We are reaffirming to the community, and to gun violence victims and their families, that we are leaving no stone unturned as we work to combat gun violence.”

“Our message is simple: if you illegally pick up a gun or commit a violent crime, you are our priority, full stop,” said Attorney General Jennings. “We convict more than 80% of gun offenders, but gun crime is still increasing even as crime, in general, has fallen. This initiative expands the successful intelligence sharing that our offices have used in the past to track down violent criminals. This is part of a multi-pronged strategy to curb gun violence not only through prevention and reform but through robust enforcement, particularly against repeat offenders.”

 

“The WPD has made more than 600 arrests for gun crimes during the last two years,” said U.S. Attorney Weiss. “Clearly, ready access to guns is a major driver of violent crime. Criminals who choose to use a firearm must understand that there will be immediate adverse consequences for that choice. This enhanced collaborative effort allows law enforcement to track gun prosecutions from arrest through sentencing, ensuring that those who illegally possess or use firearms answer for their criminal conduct.”

For the past few years, the WPD has managed a GunStat intelligence initiative, which includes the collection and integration of intelligence related to firearm crimes, information about suspects arrested with guns, and National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) analysis of firearms and ballistic evidence. The WPD was one of the first agencies of its size in the country to have an embedded Crime Gun Intelligence Center, a partnership with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, which assists with NIBIN analysis and correlations that help investigators connect the dots between shooting incidents, shots fired incidents and gun arrests. GunStat enables investigators and command staff to follow gun offenders from case to case, and to act as necessary should a particular offender continue to commit firearm violence. This initiative is driven by the WPD’s Real Time Crime Center and results in the dissemination of actionable intelligence to patrol officers, detectives, and members of the command staff – as well as other agencies. Now, this enhanced program will include more law enforcement and prosecutorial staff and resources to produce greater results in removing illegal guns from City streets and sending gun users to jail.

The Mayor, Police Chief, Attorney General, and U.S. Attorney said GunStat and other law enforcement programs are an adjunct to the ongoing Group Violence Intervention strategy (GVI), which blends social services, the moral voice of the community, and law enforcement techniques to steer offenders away from a lifestyle that exposes them to a greater risk of violence as both a victim and offender.

The expanded GunStat team will include Wilmington Police command leadership, as well as detectives and investigators from the Criminal Investigations Division, the Drug, Organized Crime and Vice Division, and the Real-Time Crime Center, in addition to task force officers who work with the U.S. Marshals Service, the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The team will also include embedded prosecutors from the Delaware Department of Justice and the United States Attorney’s Office, who are empowered to evaluate cases and commit prosecutorial resources to ensure offenders are held to the highest account for their actions.

In reviewing each case, this expanded GunStat group will (1) review the status of the case; (2) review prosecutorial needs; (3) evaluate the potential to move the case to federal prosecution, if applicable; and (4) discuss intelligence related to offenders and other related investigations, and to leverage law enforcement resources to further interrupt the cycle of shootings and violence.

The enhanced GunStat program will be managed by an Executive Board, consisting of Mayor Purzycki, Chief Tracy, Attorney General Jennings, and U.S. Attorney Weiss. This group will be charged with reviewing on at least a monthly basis the results of each case that has been reviewed by the GunStat team, and ensuring progress is being made.

The Mayor, Police Chief, Attorney General, and U.S. Attorney agree that crimes such as the illegal possession of a firearm are a gateway crime to shootings and murders and that by focusing State and Federal prosecutorial efforts on cases like these through GunStat, Wilmington can prevent fatal and nonfatal shootings and reinforce the message that illegal gun possession will not be tolerated in Wilmington.