WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) questioned U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland yesterday in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about how the U.S. Department of Justice can work with state and local law enforcement agencies to tackle crime in Wilmington and across the First State. At the hearing, Senator Coons thanked Attorney General Garland for hundreds of millions from the Biden administration to fund group violence intervention strategies in municipalities like Wilmington, which have helped bring the city’s homicide rate down to a 15-year low. Senator Coons also asked Attorney General Garland about the NICS Denial Notification bill, bipartisan legislation introduced by Senator Coons and signed into law last year that makes it easier for federal law enforcement to alert state and local agencies when an individual tries to buy a firearm and fails a background check. Forty-four thousand denial notifications have already gone to state and local law enforcement since the bill’s implementation in September, Senator Coons noted.
Senator Coons: Thank you, Chairman [Dick] Durbin [D-Ill.]. Thank you, Attorney General Garland, for your leadership of the department, and for testifying here today. I appreciate all you’re doing to restore your office to its critical role in our constitutional order. Violent crime is a concern many members of both parties have raised today in this oversight hearing. I just want to share with you that my hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, which has had a longstanding challenge with violent crime and in particular, murders, saw significant decreases over the last few years. Murders were down 58% in the past year to a 15-year low, shootings were down 30%, robberies were down 20%, and in meeting with the mayor and chief of police recently, when I spoke with them, they credited federal and local law enforcement partnerships, including, in particular, group violence intervention strategies, as being central to their successful efforts. Congress and the Biden administration have together given $200 million to fund these programs for the first time. Why do you think investments in things like violence intervention strategies have been so effective?
Attorney General Garland: So, I appreciate your asking that. I was just in St. Louis and East St. Louis [Illinois] to look into the way in which these violence intervention strategies have been effective. They are part of our whole-of-department approach to violent crime, which involves both law enforcement, and support for state and local law enforcement, and grants to state and local law enforcement, but also grants to communities to prevent the violence in the first place. There are many kinds of these community violence interruption programs and intervention programs. They generally rely on having credible messengers of people whom the community trusts for any number of variety of reasons, who go into the community and try to explain to the community that the police are on their side, that they need to be witnesses, be supportive, and to develop trust between law enforcement and communities. That’s the bottom line of all this.
Senator Coons: That’s certainly what we've seen in Wilmington and frankly, our chief of police just went to St. Louis to be their new chief of police, and I wish him well. I co-lead the Law Enforcement Caucus with Senator [John] Cornyn [R] of Texas. One of the things we’ve recently been talking about is the NICS Denial Notification Act, which Senator Cornyn and I led last year, and the President signed into law. It requires federal law enforcement to notify state and local authorities when someone fails a background check, when they “lie and try” to buy a gun. It’s been in place since September and we’ve already seen 44,000 denial notifications go to local law enforcement. Can you just speak briefly to the value of this information for local law enforcement to prevent dangerous individuals from being able to acquire weapons?
Attorney General Garland: Right. Well, this particular example is really the nub here. Somebody who is not lawfully allowed to get a gun, who goes to try to get one anyway, say, there’s a higher probability that person wants to do something nefarious with that gun, and now, thanks to this legislation, the state and local police will know about that, and will be able to investigate to determine what it was that [that] person was about to do with an unlawful weapon.
Senator Coons: It’s something that the sheriffs and the local chiefs in Delaware have been very excited about, and I look forward to working with you to make sure that it’s fully and promptly implemented.
Senator Coons is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Co-Chair of the Senate Law Enforcement Caucus.
The full remarks and video are available here.
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