Attorney General William Barr revealed the Justice Department’s anti-crime effort, Operation Legend, has led to nearly 1,500 arrests so far, including 90 homicide arrests, while declaring his agency is “strengthening” police rather than “demonizing” them.
Barr made the announcement in Kansas City on Wednesday afternoon, a week after the arrest of the man charged with murdering 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro, for whom the nine-city Justice Department endeavor is named. Taliferro was killed the morning of June 29 while asleep in his Kansas City home, and 22-year-old Ryson Ellis was recently arrested by Missouri’s Jackson County prosecutors for second-degree murder, unlawful use of a weapon, and two counts of armed criminal action. Taliferro’s mother, Charron Powell, joined Barr at the press conference where Barr touted how federal law enforcement agencies are working in conjunction with state and local law enforcement officials to fight violent crime.
“For us, LeGend is a symbol of the many hundreds of innocent lives that have been taken in the recent upsurge in crime in many of our urban areas,” Barr said. “His life mattered, and the lives of all of those victims mattered. His name should be remembered, and his senseless death, like those of all the other victims in this recent surge, should be unacceptable to all Americans.”
Barr said federal agents have helped in making 1,485 arrests as part of the sweeping anti-crime initiative, started in the wake of rising violence following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, across nine cities.
“Since the operation’s launch, there have been more than 1,000 arrests, including defendants who have been charged in state and local courts. Of those arrests, approximately 217 defendants have been charged with federal crimes. These numbers exclude Indianapolis, whose operation was just announced last Friday. In addition, nearly 400 firearms have been seized by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives,” said a Justice Department statement accompanying Barr’s press conference.
Lamenting how “this could be a bad year for violent crime,” Barr warned that the rise in crime could reverse “a trend” toward lower crime rates “that has been going on for almost 30 years.”
“This spike might have a lot of reasons behind it. I think it may be the pent up aggression prompted by state and local quarantine orders. I definitely feel a lot of it is due to the premature release of dangerous criminals by the courts and by prosecutors,” Barr said. “And I think it also is related to the efforts we’ve recently seen to demonize the police and to defund their work. Operation Legend is the heart of the federal government’s response to this upturn in violent crime. Its mission is to save lives, solve crimes, and take violent offenders off the streets before they can claim more victims. Rather than demonizing and defunding the police, we are supporting and strengthening our law enforcement partners at the state and local level.”
Barr was also joined at the press conference by FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich as well as the U.S. attorneys from Operation Legend cities Kansas City, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Cleveland, Memphis, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, and Albuquerque. The Justice Department statement contained a city-by-city breakdown of federal charges in each district, with the exception of Indianapolis. The more than 1,000 arrests include defendants who have been charged in state and local courts.
“This morning, as we were going through some things with the attorney general, one thing became noticeable as we walked through our cases, is that we wouldn’t have solved our cases as timely as we had and we wouldn’t have suspects in custody without our federal partnerships,” Kansas City Police Department Chief Rick Smith said. “I turned to the attorney general and said, ‘This is absolutely making a difference.’ … It’s not about the agents that came here, it’s about the violence that’s occurring, and we want the violence to subside.”
Taliferro’s mother also spoke briefly, thanking the police for catching her son’s alleged killer and calling on her community to work together to provide tips to the police.
“I want to express to the community that we have to help each other with the other cases that they are working on to solve,” Powell said. “This is just the beginning. Yes, I am beginning to get justice for my son, but I also want to make sure that I help out everyone that I can so that we get justice for you guys also … No, we don’t have our son back, but we have a light weight lifted off of us, so I appreciate everyone, and I thank you.”
Barr said that “this arrest will not bring LeGend back, but it will make his case an example of how we can come together to take violent criminals off the street and to make our communities safer.”
“When I met her in Washington, I promised Charron that LeGend’s death will not be in vain, and he will inspire us to greater efforts to make Kansas City safe,” Barr said. “And Charron said she also strongly supported expanding our efforts beyond Kansas City, so that other communities can be made safer.”
