Operation Legend (or Operation LeGend) is a federal law enforcement operation in the U.S. The operation was named after four-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who was shot and killed in Kansas City, Missouri, on June 29, 2020. For Operation Legend, agents from various federal agencies were deployed to aid and assist city and county law enforcement officers.
In the early morning hours of June 29, 2020, four-year-old LeGend Taliferro was killed by gunfire while he was sleeping. The death of Taliferro occurred during a time of increased violence in Kansas City and Missouri as a whole, with at least five children being killed in Kansas City in the first six months of 2020.
Operation Legend started in Kansas City and has since spread to other cities around the US that have been experiencing significant increases in violence. Chicago was one such city that joined the operation on July 22nd. The Democratic mayor, Lori Lightfoot, who has struggled to do anything against the rising violence in her city, initially threatened “to sue if President Trump tried to send federal agents into Chicago without permission.”
According to the Chicago Tribune,
So far in 2020, Chicago has experienced one of its most violent years in recent memory, especially since late May with the fallout over the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minnesota. Through Sunday, homicides in Chicago were up 51% with 414, compared to 275 at the same time last year, official CPD statistics show. Shootings were also up by 47%.
During a 28-day period through Sunday, 116 people were slain in Chicago, the statistics show. That’s up from 40 during the same period in 2019.
Mayor Lightfoot changed her tune slightly after talking with the US Attorney. Lightfoot would no longer sue but she would not allow “Trump’s troops to come to Chicago and terrorize our residents.”
Under no circumstances will I allow Donald Trump’s troops to come to Chicago and terrorize our residents.
— Archived: Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot (@mayorlightfoot) July 21, 2020
Terrorizing residents seems to be an internal issue in Chicago. 28 minutes after this tweet, someone shot 15 people at a funeral on the South Side. This was quite literally a shootout as at least five attendees returned fire.
Obviously Lightfoot was trying to save face with fellow Democratic mayors who have allowed violence to increase within their cities without serious attempts to abate it. That did not sit well with Chicago residents who have to deal with the daily terror that is going on.
https://twitter.com/TheRightMelissa/status/1285776253887434752
What are the results roughly a month and a half since the initiation of Operation Legend in Chicago? AG Barr held a news conference in Chicago on Wednesday to give a progress report.
Barr noted that federal law-enforcement action has resulted in 500 arrests and the charging of 124 people with federal criminal charges according to Fox News.
“The results of those actions speak for themselves: over the first five weeks of Operation Legend in Chicago, murders dropped by 50% over the previous five weeks. August ultimately saw a 45% decrease in murders compared to July, and a 35% decrease compared to June.”
Barr noted that this result was not due to just Operation Legend but that Operation Legend was an important factor in the reduction of the violence.
Kansas City and Chicago are not the only cities where Operation Legend has been in functioning. It currently is underway in at least seven other cities. These include Albuquerque, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Memphis, Milwaukee and St Louis. More than 2,500 people have been arrested and 600 are facing federal charges.
One can expect more arrests in the future. Barr reported,
“In addition, federal defendants will face serious sentences if convicted, with a real possibility of long-term imprisonment … knowing that, many of the arrestees cooperate with the government and lead to even more violent offenders.”
What a novel approach! Arresting and detaining violent offenders reduces the rate of violence. Perhaps mayors in other cities could learn something from this.