Attorney General Merrick B. Garland Delivers Remarks at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Nevada

Thank you, Jason, for that generous introduction. And for your leadership.

Now that I'm here, I would say I had been under the naïve assumption that Washington, D.C.'s summer is hot. They say Las Vegas humbles you. And so, it has humbled me.

I came here to talk with our prosecutors and law enforcement leaders who are gathered at the table today. They are working together as our partners confronting violent crime in order to make Nevada safer for the people who live here.

When I became Attorney General three and a half years ago, I knew that the most powerful tool we would have to address violent crime was our partnerships. That was my experience when I was a line prosecutor in the early 1990s prosecuting violent gangs and narcotics. That was my experience later in the 1990s when I was a supervisor at the Justice Department organizing and supervising our efforts around the country to prosecute violence.

So, we built an anti-violent crime strategy rooted in strengthening our collaboration among our federal partners; with our state and local law enforcement partners; and with the communities that we all serve.

And we fortified these partnerships by bringing to bear the latest technologies for identifying and prosecuting the criminals who represent the greatest danger to our communities.

And now we are seeing results. Last year, we saw one of the lowest violent crime rates in 50 years nationwide. That included the largest drop in homicides in 50 years, including a 12% drop here in Las Vegas.

But we know that progress in many communities is still uneven. And of course, there is no acceptable level of violent crime.

The Justice Department is working here in Nevada and across the country to arrest violent felons, seize and trace guns used in crimes, disrupt violent drug traffickers, and prosecute the individuals and gangs who are responsible for the most and the greatest amount of violence.

For this U.S. Attorney's Office, this has meant working as part of the Department's Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force program, what we call OCDETF. These Task Forces identify, disrupt, and dismantle the highest-level criminal and drug trafficking organizations operating in the country.

At the end of June, working with an OCDETF Task Force, this office secured a 10-year sentence for a man who used social media to distribute fentanyl. He was initially arrested when law enforcement officers caught him transporting 30,000 pills from Phoenix to Las Vegas. Investigators soon discovered that he had conspired to distribute hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills throughout the country.

And earlier this year, the office worked as part of a Task Force to successfully prosecute another man, this one also for distributing thousands of fentanyl pills - including here in Las Vegas. He, too, received a 10-year sentence.

A single dose of fentanyl can be lethal. And this office is working relentlessly to get fentanyl out of our communities.

This U.S. Attorney's Office is also working with its law enforcement partners to crack down on firearms offenses and disrupt gun violence. Earlier this year, working with the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the office secured a sentence for a Las Vegas man who illegally sold more than 200 guns without a Federal Firearms License.

A number of those weapons were used to commit crimes in Nevada and California. In one case, an AK-47-style assault pistol, purchased from the defendant, was used by a convicted felon to kill a Sacramento County Sheriff's Department deputy and wound two California Highway Patrol officers.

We will continue to combat illegal gun trafficking that endangers our communities and the officers who risk their lives to protect them.

This office is also working to combat the disturbing rise in threats against those who serve the public. Last month, the office charged a Las Vegas man for threatening to assault and murder federal officials - including federal judges - and state employees across three states and Washington, D.C. Public servants have to be able to go about their jobs serving the public without fearing for their lives or the lives of their family.

I know that this U.S. Attorney's Office will not rest until every person, in every neighborhood, in every community, is safe from violent threats and safe from violent crime.

I also know that these examples are just a snapshot of the work this office does every single day to fulfill the Justice Department's mission to keep our communities safe, to protect civil rights, and to uphold the rule of law.

I am very proud of the work of U.S. Attorney Frierson and of all the men and women of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Nevada. And I am equally proud of the partnerships reflected around this table that the office has nurtured with the people who really do the job on the frontlines of protecting our communities, working every day to keep Nevadans safe.

With that, we're going to begin our meeting.

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