Task force formed in response to recent shootings involves the ATF

By Avery Mangahas

News Correspondent

Boston has a new anti-gun task force, Mayor Menino announced in his annual State of the City Address Jan. 11. The task force is a partnership involving the Boston Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, referred to as the ATF.

“The task force is being formed in response to an up-kick in shooting instances,” said Elaine Driscoll, director of communications at the Boston Police Department. “Essentially several officers will be placed over at the ATF offices to work closely with the ATF on high-profile shooting cases and particularly gang involved ones to trace origins of firearms.”

When asked if the new task force is a response to a poor performance on the part of the ATF, Driscoll explained that the ATF and the Boston Police Department already have a partnership.

“The ATF is an extraordinarily valuable partner to the BPD and has been for a long time and we’re looking forward to having a more focused effort on gang gun activity as we continue to find creative ways to address a complex problem,” he said.

The move to include the BPD makes sense, said Michael Dukakis, former Massachusetts governor and Northeastern poltical science professor.

“This is something that has to be done at the local level,” Dukakis said. “Because you can’t expect federal agents to wander into Dorchester or Charlestown or someplace and start dealing with this thing. The community itself has to be mobilized and involved … you have to be working with these kids on an ongoing basis.”

Because of the importance of the issue, both the ATF and the Boston Police Department allocate money towards the anti-gun task force.

“We’ll do that through both ATF and BPD budgets,” Driscoll said. “That is pre-existing, so there’s no special funding that’s been allotted for it. Officers are already over at the ATF, so it’s currently in progress now. It was simultaneous with Mayor Menino’s announcement.”

The new task force hearkens back to Boston’s history as a pioneer in anti-gun law enforcement. In the mid-”90s the city was overwhelmed by gang violence, illegal firearms and drugs.

“We were kind of the poster child for how to control this stuff back in the “90s. A number of things were done at the time including these tough laws,” Dukakis said. “If you’re caught in Boston walking around with a gun without a license to carry you go to jail. It was part of a real effort involv[ing] police and probation officers together out on the street identifying folks.”

These measures drove crime down at a staggering rate.

“We [now] have some of the toughest gun laws in America in Massachusetts and we have the third lowest homicide rate in the country, and there’s a relationship,” Dukakis said.

The homicide rate is down in Boston so far, from 13 with firearm shootings, nonfatal and fatal, to 11 this year.

“I think what happened was everybody said, ‘Hey we’ve kind of figured this out’ and then they kind of relaxed a bit,” Dukakis said. “What you have to remember here is every four or five years we have a whole new generation of teenagers. So this has got to be a very serious on-going effort.”

Dukakis has faith that new measures, including the anti-gun task force, will produce results.

“I’m quite confident [in] the Mayor and the police department,” he said. “We’ll see a decline in violence.”