Multi-agency strategic partnership in New York City aims to reduce gun violence
NEW YORK -- We see gun violence spilled onto city streets all too often, but what we don't always see is what law enforcement is doing about it.
CBS New York's Jennifer Bisram got an exclusive look into a multiagency Gun Violence Strategic Partnership in New York City that's helping to reduce crime and talked with a grieving mother who says it's still not enough.
"It's very difficult. I sometimes try to act like he's just somewhere else," said Elaine Francis, who lost her firstborn son, Alonzo Georgia, to gun violence almost a year ago.
Police say the 24-year old delivery worker was shot and killed during a robbery at his Harlem apartment building last March.
"They pushed him out of the building and they shot him," Francis said.
The men involved were arrested two weeks later and are being charged with murder.
Local and federal law enforcement credit their Gun Violence Strategic Partnership for fewer guns and trigger-pullers on city streets.
"So what the goal was was to bring everybody together, put them in one room and have them collaborate ... so that we can better address gun violence here in the city," said John DeVito, special agent in charge of New York state's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
CBS New York was given exclusive access to a recent daily briefing in Lower Manhattan, which brings 20 agencies in law enforcement and government to the table -- the first collaboration of its kind in the country.
Chauncey Parker, the NYPD's deputy commissioner for collaborative policing, helps run the program.
"This is a partnership of all law enforcement in New York City -- federal, state, local, NYPD, ATF, all the district attorneys offices," he said.
It started in August of 2021 and was the brainchild of DeVito, whose own mother was shot and killed in front of his eyes when he was a teen. He too survived being shot that awful day and since has made it his mission to help end gun violence.
"She was my world," he said.
ATF has 11 evidence vaults throughout the entire state, including one in Lower Manhattan, where some of the recovered firearms are stored.
CBS New York also got an exclusive look at a wide range of recovered firearms -- everything from AR-style rifles to semi-automatic pistols, even ghost guns, all used in New York City shootings.
The NYPD says they have taken 1,375 guns off the street so far this year and 14,965 since January 2022. The department's crime stats also show shootings overall in the five boroughs are down 17% compared to this time last year.
"I don't believe that crime is down in New York City at all," Francis said.
The grieving mother says the stats don't mean much to her since memories with her son are all she has left of him. She's hoping for stricter gun laws too.
"Before these people pull the trigger, if they realize themselves on the other side of that barrel ... maybe they would think twice," Francis said.