Northern District of California Project Safe Neighborhoods FY 22 Grant Application

The creation of an Alameda County Crime Strategies Unit (CSU) is a critical component of the Northern District of California’s PSN Strategy and will analyze real-time intelligence related to firearms and violent crime and will direct intelligence-driven state and federal prosecutions.  This focused crime gun intelligence and case intake program is also an explicit action item in the PSN Pillar for focused and strategic enforcement, and the USAO’s ability to collaborate with the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office (ACDAO) would directly facilitate this goal.   

The ACDAO CSU, composed of attorneys, inspectors and crime analysts will evaluate crimes and attempt to link them by identifying the prolific offenders, firearms related intelligence including ballistics associations and tracing information, and uncover linked crimes to build the most impactful cases that target violence drivers and disrupt the flow of illicit firearms, thereby reducing overall crime. One of the key vehicles for accomplishing this goal will be the creation of a Gun Related Intelligence Program (GRIP) within the Unit.  The development of a CSU/GRIP will significantly enable Alameda County to coordinate violent crime investigation throughout multiple jurisdictions and allow us to link the crimes and focus on the crime drivers in our communities. 

The ACDAO CSU/GRIP will utilize dedicated crime analysts, inspectors, and attorneys to analyze real-time intelligence from police reports, ballistics information, and other sources to identify trends associated to and the crime drivers perpetrating gun violence and gun trafficking in Alameda County.  We aim to develop an intensive, ongoing collaboration between the ATF, FBI, local police departments, crime laboratories, probation and parole, local gang units, prosecuting attorneys, USAO, crime analysts and community groups to further these goals. 

The CSU/GRIP will identify violent crime drivers, including gang associations, through real-time analysis of police reports identifying the use of firearms.  We will identify and address individuals who illegally possess and traffic in guns. The ACDAO will operationalize the analysis derived from the CSU/GRIP to implement a strategy to recover and remove illegal weapons and disrupt the flow of illegal firearms causing havoc in our communities. ACDAO will also implement violence reduction, prevention, and intervention efforts targeting high risk gang members as well as evaluation and assessment of those focused efforts. This grant funding will support an Analyst position within the ACDAO to enable a strategic intelligence driven approach to investigation and prosecution, and to facilitate coordination with existing and anticipated parallel efforts.