Federal crackdown aims to curb violent crime spike in NYC

NEW YORK — The top federal prosecutor in Brooklyn announced Wednesday that he would put a new priority on firearms and drug cases, seeking stiffer penalties than are being doled out at the state level. That would put the city on track to have its highest number of homicides since 2011, after several years of record lows, but would still leave New York as one of the safest big cities in the U.S. “You can talk about the statistics, but this is the summer where we lost a 1-year child in a stroller on the streets of Brooklyn to gun violence,” said Dermot Shea, the New York City police commissioner. David Patton, executive director of the Federal Defenders of New York, criticized DuCharme’s initiative as “misguided,” saying that federal prosecutions of firearms offenses often involve simple possession of a weapon found in a person’s home rather than the use of a gun to harm someone. “It might make for a good sound bite to bring a case from state court to federal court and add years to a person’s prison sentence, but it only contributes to over-incarceration and racial inequality.” The crackdown comes amid a broader push by Attorney General William Barr to bring federal charges in protest-related violence whenever they can, as in the case of two young Brooklyn attorneys accused of torching an empty NYPD vehicle during a demonstration this summer. “It should be more stressful in New York City to be an armed, violent criminal offender than to be a member of the public,” DuCharme said.