[Senate Hearing 117-871]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




                                 ______


                                                        S. Hrg. 117-871
 
                     COMBATING GUN TRAFFICKING AND
                      REDUCING VIOLENCE IN CHICAGO

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               before the

                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
                             FIELD HEARING
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                           DECEMBER 13, 2021

                               __________

                          Serial No. J-117-47

                               __________

         Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
         
         
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                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                   RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois, Chair
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont            CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa, Ranking 
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California             Member
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island     LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota             JOHN CORNYN, Texas
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware       MICHAEL S. LEE, Utah
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut      TED CRUZ, Texas
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii              BEN SASSE, Nebraska
CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey           JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri
ALEX PADILLA, California             TOM COTTON, Arkansas
JON OSSOFF, Georgia                  JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
                                     THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
                                     MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
             Joseph Zogby, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
      Kolan L. Davis, Republican Chief Counsel and Staff Director
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                   Page

Durbin, Hon. Richard J...........................................     1
Leahy, Hon. Patrick J............................................    42

                               WITNESSES

Casten, Hon. Sean, Congresswoman from Illinois...................     9
Davis, Hon. Danny, Congressman from Illinois.....................     4
Garcia, Hon. Jesus, Congressman from Illinois....................    10
Kelly, Hon. Robin, Congresswoman from Illinois...................     7
Quigley, Hon. Mike, Congressman from Illinois....................     6
Schakowsky, Hon. Jan, Congresswoman from Illinois................     5
Ander, Roseanna..................................................    32
    Prepared statement...........................................    43
Brown, David.....................................................    27
    Prepared statement...........................................    48
    Responses to written questions...............................    82
de Tineo, Kristen................................................    14
    Prepared statement...........................................    52
Houry, Debra.....................................................    16
    Prepared statement...........................................    55
Lausch, John.....................................................    12
    Prepared statement...........................................    62
Swearer, Amy.....................................................    30
    Prepared statement...........................................    69
    Responses to written questions...............................    89

                                APPENDIX


                     COMBATING GUN TRAFFICKING AND



                      REDUCING VIOLENCE IN CHICAGO

                              ----------                              


                       MONDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2021

                               United States Senate
                                 Committee on the Judiciary
                                          Chicago, Illinois
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice at 9:01 a.m., in the 
Ceremonial Courtroom 2525, Everett McKinley Dirksen United 
States Courthouse, Chicago, Illinois, Hon. Richard J, Durbin, 
Chair of the Committee, presiding.
    Present: Senator Durbin [presiding].
    Also present: Congresspersons Davis, Schakowsky, Quigley, 
Kelly, Casten, and Garcia.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD J. DURBIN,

            U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

    Chair Durbin. Make sure that--oh, here we are. Good 
morning. This hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee will 
come to order. I want to thank the judges--Judge Palmer was 
here earlier; thank you very much for personally dropping by--
the Clerk of the Court, U.S. Marshals Service, and all the 
staff and court personnel, for--enable us here to have this 
hearing at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse. Grateful to all the 
people who work in this building, and I want to thank Mayor 
Lightfoot and the city leaders for welcoming our Committee 
hearing.
    I serve as Chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. 
It has jurisdiction over a lot of issues: lifetime appointments 
to the Federal judiciary, civil rights, human rights, 
overseeing the system of justice, and protecting public safety. 
When we hold Committee hearings, we are able to bring together 
Federal Government officials to testify on the record about 
these important issues. Part of my job is to make sure the 
Federal Government's doing all it can to address the challenges 
facing the city of Chicago, of course, and the State of 
Illinois.
    Today's hearing is going to focus on how to address an 
urgent challenge facing this city, communities across the 
country: gun crime and violence that threatens our neighborhood 
and families. Gun violence is a nationwide epidemic. Today we 
focus on Chicago and Illinois, but at least 12 major cities 
have set homicide records in the year 2021. Why? Fewer cops on 
the street, reduced after-school programs, court systems pushed 
to the limit, and mental health issues exacerbated by COVID-19.
    Which cities am I talking about? Well, Philadelphia is 
pretty obvious, a city about comparable to Chicago. It goes way 
beyond that. The new homicide records have been set in St. 
Paul, Minnesota. If you think you can go to the Sun Belt and 
escape them, sorry. Tucson, Arizona; Albuquerque, New Mexico; 
Louisville, Kentucky.
    I'm going to move to Indiana. That ought to be safe. 
Indianapolis set a new homicide record. I mentioned Columbus, 
Ohio. Let's go down to a good red State with some tough people 
on it when it comes to law and order. Austin, Texas set a new 
homicide record, the capital of the State of Texas. Baton 
Rouge. Portland, Oregon. Toledo. The list goes on and on. 
Cities and states, red and blue, in the Midwest, in the west, 
east, north, and south.
    It must be the new President. That's what it's all about. 
That's the problem. Sorry, the homicide rate increased 20 
percent in the last year of the Trump administration, and 
arrests are down nationwide. Arrests--there were ten million in 
2019, 7.6 million in the last year of the Trump administration, 
a 20 percent decline. We have problems with people who are just 
basically fed up with being afraid. You hear from them every 
day, don't you? Your neighbors and friends are talking about 
it: ``Did you hear the latest about crime in the city of 
Chicago?''
    We have fewer cops because of retirement and COVID. This 
morning's Chicago Tribune has a front-page story about what's 
going on Michigan Avenue. I was on Michigan Avenue Friday night 
after going to a restaurant. There was a sea of blue lights. I 
understand that's fairly common now, and the people in the area 
are welcoming it, because it really is a deterrent to flash 
mobs and street violence.
    We know the grim numbers in this city. Over 4,000 
Chicagoans have been shot this year. Four thousand. In Cook 
County, there have been more than 1,000 homicides, 
overwhelmingly due to gun violence. Much of this gun violence, 
about half of it, is concentrated in 15 neighborhoods, but we 
know the reality. No neighborhood is immune.
    The problem, as I mentioned, is not just limited to this 
city and this State. This is not just about numbers. It's about 
real people, real lives. It's about funerals and young lives 
taken too soon and empty chairs at the dinner table for the 
families they leave behind. It's about parents losing children 
they love, children losing brothers and sisters, classmates 
losing friends, families and communities forever scarred.
    Over half the people murdered in Cook County this year were 
under 30 years of age. They had lives to live, families to care 
for and love, contributions they could make to this world. All 
of that was violently ended by a bullet. I think of young 
Mychal Moultry, M.J., a four-year-old boy. He was getting his 
hair braided in an apartment in Woodlawn, one afternoon in 
September. A car pulled up in front, and three people jumped 
out and started firing at the building. Two bullets hit him in 
the head. He died 48 hours later.
    Eight victims who were shot, five of them fatally, in a 
mass shooting in Inglewood in June. One of them was Shermetria 
Williams. She was just getting ready to graduate from Country 
Club Hills Tech that very same day. Another, Denice Mathis, 
killed, leaving behind five children.
    I think of Woom Sing Tse, a 71-year-old grandfather, 
murdered outside his home in Chinatown last week, shot more 
than 20 times in an execution-style killing by a so-called 
ghost gun. If you're not familiar with that term, please learn. 
That's a gun that's untraceable, assembled from parts with no 
serial numbers. Remember Azul De La Garza, 18-year-old who had 
an early start in social justice as a youth organizer in Gage 
Park. Azul was shot and killed while sitting in a parked car in 
West Elsdon neighborhood.
    Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and loved 
ones, but as I've said many times, thoughts and prayers are not 
enough. Every single person who's been victimized by gun 
violence deserves justice. It's important that we solve these 
crimes and hold shooters accountable, but we also need to 
prevent these shootings from happening in the first place. 
Prosecutions after funerals don't bring back those we lost.
    Preventing violence requires all of us in an ``all hands on 
deck'' effort, coordinated, evidence-informed strategies that 
combine the work of law enforcement, community-based 
organizations, schools, the faith community, public health 
agencies, the business community, and virtually everyone else. 
One critical focus of prevention must be gun trafficking. 
Chicago is awash in guns, and they're largely being trafficked 
in from other places, elsewhere in Illinois and other states.
    In June, the Biden administration established the 
Department of Justice Firearms Trafficking Strike Force here in 
Chicago, under the leadership of U.S. Attorney John Lausch, who 
will testify today. I joined Attorney General Garland when he 
visited on July 22d to announce the launch. The strike force 
brings Federal, State, and local prosecutors and law 
enforcement agencies together to investigate and dismantle 
firearms trafficking schemes. Let's be clear. If we want to 
reduce shootings, we need to reduce the flow of illegal guns 
into this city and State. This is what the task force--strike 
force is tasked to do.
    We'll hear, as well, from Kristen de Tineo, the special 
agent in charge of ATF here in Chicago. I also look forward to 
hearing what the DOJ Strike Force is doing to combat straw 
purchasing.
    Straw purchasing came home to Chicago last August. I 
joined--my wife and I joined the thousands of people at Rita 
High School in Beverly, when CPD Officer Ella French held--a 
memorial service was held for her. She had been killed on the 
street, and her partner, Carlos Yanez, Jr.,--who I understand 
Congressman Garcia is friends with his family--he was seriously 
wounded, and I pray for him every day. It was a routine traffic 
stop that ended up in one officer killed and another seriously 
wounded.
    What did we learn about the weapon they used? It was a 
murder weapon that was straw purchased in Indiana. I wrote 
Attorney General Garland and asked that the strike force make 
it a priority to focus on combating straw purchases. We'll 
also--we'll also discuss with our witnesses how agencies are 
working across State lines, and we'll discuss investigative 
tools like crime gun tracing, NIBIN statistics.
    We'll also hear, on our second panel, from Chicago Police 
Superintendent David Brown. Eighty-five percent of law 
enforcement is State and local. We want to make sure that the 
15 percent, the Federal side of it, is doing its part. I look 
forward to hearing from the superintendent about what we can do 
at the Federal level to make his job better, and I look forward 
to hearing from the CPD and how they are trying to build new 
relationships, and better relationships, with people in the 
community. That's where community-based violence intervention 
programs also come in.
    We'll hear from the University of Chicago Crime Lab, which 
evaluates and supports programs like READI Chicago that are 
producing meaningful results. Studies show these programs can 
reduce violence. There are many layers to the gun violence 
epidemic. I want to salute Governor Pritzker and acknowledge 
that he declared gun violence a public health crisis in 
Illinois last month. We have done so, finally--finally--at the 
Federal level.
    Today we'll hear from the Principal Deputy Director of the 
CDC, our Nation's public health agency. The CDC doesn't just 
study coronavirus and diabetes. It applies its strategy to 
health challenges in our community, including violence.
    I'll lay out the mechanics here. We're joined by several 
members of the Illinois congressional delegation, and I'm glad 
that they're here. I'm going to recognize them first and give 
them an opportunity to make brief member statements. I've been 
proud to partner with them, and I'll continue to. Senator 
Duckworth could not make this hearing this morning, but she's 
all in. She and I will be working together on this issue.
    After we hear from our House colleagues, we'll turn to our 
first panel. After I introduce and swear in the witness, each 
one will have five minutes for oral statement and then 
questions and answers. Then we'll turn to our second panel.
    I now want to recognize my colleagues from Congress. I 
think Congresswoman Schakowsky is first up and then Congressman 
Davis and Congressman Quigley. Sorry, I understand that 
Congressman Davis is first up. Seniority is a very important 
thing in our business. Congressman Davis, my friend, take it 
away.
    Congressman Davis. Age before beauty.
    [Laughter.]
    Chair Durbin. Make sure----
    Congressman Davis. Senator Durbin----
    Chair Durbin. Is your microphone on?
    Congressman Davis [continuing]. Members of the Committee--
--
    Chair Durbin. Check your microphone, Danny.
    Congressman Davis. Yes, I think it's here.
    Chair Durbin. Okay.

                 STATEMENT OF HON. DANNY DAVIS,

         A U.S. CONGRESSMAN FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

    Congressman Davis. Senator Durbin, Members of the 
Committee, fellow panelists, interested persons, and the 
general public, first of all, I thank Senator Durbin for 
holding this very important hearing and for once again raising 
the issue of the presence and impact of guns on the continuing 
rise in violent crime in our communities of Illinois and across 
the Nation. It is clear to me, and should be clear, that the 
presence and ease of acquiring guns, the availability of guns, 
is an integral part of crime growth, and we must do everything 
in our power to reduce it, to curb it, and do a better job of 
controlling the presence and the flow of guns. We know that 
homicide with guns is a public health epidemic, and no matter 
what else we do, we must do a better job of controlling the 
flow.
    I don't usually talk about this issue from a personal 
perspective, but a little more than three years ago, I got a 
telephone call from a police commander who said, ``Congressman 
Davis, I've got some bad news for you.'' I said, ``How bad?'' 
He said, ``Pretty bad.'' Then he gave me the name of a person 
and asked if I knew that person, and I said, ``Yes, of course. 
That's my grandson.'' He said, ``I'm afraid that he has been 
shot.'' I said, ``How bad is it?'' He said, ``He's gone.''
    I can tell you that since that night, his immediate family 
have not experienced a peaceful moment, nor have the families 
of the two young people who invaded his home and shot him. 
Neither have they experienced a peaceful moment. Both these 
young people are now serving 30 years in prison, and their 
families have been broken, just as my family has been broken.
    The interesting thing about the whole incident is, had 
there not been a gun, in all likelihood it never would have 
happened. They knew each other, they interacted with each 
other, and they played a little game of swapping clothes and 
had a little argument, but one had a gun. Since that time, the 
repercussions have been felt.
    Senator Durbin, I thank you once again for raising this 
issue, and I also thank you for partnering with me on the 
informed care legislation that we both introduced, to deal with 
the issue and the problems of traumatic experiences that people 
have had. We've got over 200 people, 200 organizations and 
groups who stood with us as we introduced it. I thank you 
again, and I thank you for raising the issue here today.
    Chair Durbin. Danny, thank you for sharing that personal 
story. It hits home when someone that you respect and love, 
like you, felt this personally in your family. Thank you for 
your testimony. Congresswoman Schakowsky.

               STATEMENT OF HON. JAN SCHAKOWSKY,

        A U.S. CONGRESSWOMAN FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

    Congresswoman Schakowsky. Thank you so much, Senator 
Durbin. I think it's so significant that you, as the Chair of 
the Judiciary Committee in the Senate, are having this hearing, 
because what we know is that we have to have national 
legislation. I've heard you say before that right now anybody 
can go across the border to any State that borders on the State 
of Illinois, open up the trunk of their car, fill it up, and 
come across the border. We don't check cars and trunks at the 
border, and so our State and our cities are flooded.
    We have good legislation, and I congratulate Governor 
Pritzker for signing a bill recently on background checks. 
Popular with all 80 percent of Americans and more, to have 
universal background checks, and yet we have not been able to 
move at the Federal level to protect everyone.
    Danny, your story--I was at that funeral. It was just the 
saddest, saddest thing that you lost your grandson. On November 
28th, we lost Carl Dennison III, 17 years old, in Evanston, 
where there was a shooting. He was killed, and four others were 
injured, including kids from 14 to 18 years old, in Evanston. 
None of our communities are really immune.
    One hundred twenty-five people, on average, die in the 
United States of America from gun violence, from guns. That 
includes suicide, as well. That is not normal. Other nations in 
this world do not see that level of murder. They have people 
with mental illness. They have inequities in all kinds of ways. 
They don't have the number of guns and the availability of guns 
on the street that are killing our children and our families.
    I wanted to point to one thing that is on the table right 
now. As part of the Build Back Better bill, $5 bill--$5 billion 
has been allocated for community violence intervention 
programs. These are programs that are based not so much on law 
enforcement but really on a medical view of gun violence.
    What it has proven is that these community programs that 
put people, often young people, people who know what's going 
on, on the street, to intervene in the often retaliatory 
murders that go back and forth, to stop that, people who have 
sometimes experience, themselves, with this kind of violence--
and these--this program would do outreach and conflict 
mediation. It would have hospital-based violence interventions. 
It would have victim services, including traumatic-informed 
health care. I think where it has been used, we have seen a 
reduction in crime, in gun violence, between 40 and 70 percent.
    This $5 billion that's in the BBB, the Build Back Better 
program, I'm hoping very much that this legislation will pass 
and that we'll be able to see another way to intervene to stop 
on the street the violence that we see. There's an--there's 
legislation that's been proposed and programs that we know can 
work, and I hope we'll move forward. Thank you, and I yield 
back.
    Chair Durbin. Thanks, Congresswoman. I might add that that 
$5 billion is in the jurisdiction of this Committee, and so 
we're hoping, before Christmas, that we can pass the 
reconciliation bill and we can start talking about specific 
ways to dedicate those funds to reducing crime and gun 
violence. Thank you very much. Congressman Mike Quigley?

                STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE QUIGLEY,

         A U.S. CONGRESSMAN FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

    Congressman Quigley. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you for 
hosting this hearing, and thanks for your leadership. Illinois 
is very fortunate to have you working with us, and I appreciate 
being here with all my colleagues and moved by my colleague Mr. 
Davis' story. It's good to be over here with all my colleagues. 
It is notable that Mr. Davis and Mr. Garcia join me as fellow 
Cook County commissioners, the cradle of Congress, the Cook 
County Board, and I look forward to working with all of you.
    We have all spent too much time over the years meeting with 
family and friends of victims. For them, and for the community, 
we have to end the violence. While our State and local partners 
in this effort focus on the tragic debate of what happens after 
a gun is fired, we at the Federal level have continuously 
fallen short on regulating the industry that puts dangerous 
weapons in our neighborhood and underfunding the agency tasked 
with enforcement. We have to stop the flow of illegal guns into 
our city, keep firearms out of the hands of criminals, and 
identify the root causes of gun violence.
    We all have different issues we focus on with this. I'd 
like to focus on just one. Thanks to a set of policies known as 
the Tiahrt Amendments, the Federal Government is prohibited 
from requiring licensed gun dealers to report on their 
inventories. This prohibition makes it much more difficult to 
crack down on bad actors who sell guns to criminals and people 
who aren't allowed to purchase a firearm. It also renders the 
requirement that licensed gun dealers report stolen guns to the 
Government effectively meaningless, because without good 
records, we can't track the guns.
    We know that almost 60 percent of the guns used in crimes 
come from just over one percent of licensed dealers. Rather 
than making commonsense reforms to encourage good recordkeeping 
and make dealers explain when guns disappear, my colleagues 
across the aisle and the gun industry consistently place 
profits over people. I have previously introduced legislation 
to repeal this prohibition and mandate gun dealers maintain 
inventories. We plan to introduce it again next year. The 
Trafficking Reduction And Criminal Enforcement Act, or TRACE 
Act, would do away with the Tiahrt Amendments and improve the 
traceability of firearms.
    The Tiahrt Amendments make it as hard as possible to 
identify dealers that aren't law abiding, which allows the flow 
of guns to criminals to continue unabated. We're all sick of 
it. Chicago is sick of it. Federal action is necessary. We're 
all committed to work with the advocates here in Chicago and my 
colleagues in DC to appeal these amendments and pass 
commonsense gun reforms. Thank you again, Chairman, for your 
work.
    Chair Durbin. Thanks, Congressman Quigley. That's an 
important legislation that you're supporting, and I support it, 
as well. I want to thank this panel, and we want to invite the 
second panel of members of the House from Illinois, 
Congresswoman Robin Kelly, Sean Casten, and Chuy Garcia, if 
you'd please come forward, the clerk's going to switch the name 
cards and microphone covers.
    Congresswoman Kelly, thank you for joining us. The floor is 
yours.

                 STATEMENT OF HON. ROBIN KELLY,

           A CONGRESSWOMAN FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

    Congresswoman Kelly. Thank you, Senator Durbin and the 
Senate Judiciary Committee, for hosting this crucial hearing in 
Chicago.
    Congresswoman Kelly. Last month----
    Chair Durbin. Is your mic on, Congresswoman? Thank you.
    Congresswoman Kelly. Last month----
    Chair Durbin. You might pull a little closer.
    Congresswoman Kelly. One of my constituents, a 14-year-old 
boy, Kevin Tinker, was killed by senseless gun violence. A few 
days later, Kevin's mother, on her way home from visiting his 
memorial site, was also killed.
    These are not the only constituents of mine that have been 
lost to gun violence recently. Every week, the communities I 
represent have to deal with another shooting, another lost 
loved one, and the fear of going outside in their own 
neighborhood. We also have to continue to speak out about those 
that are shot but don't die. There are many more people in that 
situation. Someone I'm close to just recently, last week, as a 
matter of fact, relayed to me that her dad had been shot.
    Chicago is used by some of the media as an example for why 
gun violence laws don't work, but they are missing the crucial 
part of the story. More than half of these guns, as we've 
heard, are coming from out of State. Both Indiana and 
Wisconsin, States on the border of Illinois, have weak gun laws 
and supply many of these guns. One gun store located across the 
State lines in Gary, Indiana is responsible for the flow of 
hundreds, if not thousands, of illegal firearms.
    Last week, I introduced H.R. 6225, the Federal Firearm 
Licensee Act, to tackle the supply of the tools of gun 
violence. Federal law governing licensed firearm dealers has 
not been updated in more than 30 years. This bill expands the 
applicability of Federal firearms laws to facilitators of 
firearm sales, such as sellers at gun shows and online 
marketplaces, which in several States are currently permitted 
to host large commercial marketplaces that allow for the sale 
of firearms without a background check. It also prioritizes 
inspection of high-risk dealers, requires licensees to transfer 
firearms and personal collection to business inventory prior to 
disposition, and creates a regulation for the secure storage of 
fire arms to prevent against theft. This bill removes 
appropriations riders that prevent the ATF from enforcing 
existing laws.
    It is also essential that we crack down on straw purchases. 
That's why I introduced H.R. 2280, the Prevent Gun Trafficking 
Act. This bill clarifies Federal law to make it a Federal crime 
to acquire a firearm for the possession of a third party. If an 
individual isn't allowed to buy a gun, they shouldn't be able 
to send someone else to buy it for them. Straw purchases are 
allowing guns to flow into the hands of dangerous individuals 
to conduct crime or violence.
    Individual murders don't get the national attention like 
mass shootings, but these everyday killings are destroying 
communities. This slow-motion massacre cannot continue. People 
are tired of waiting. Congress must act so no more children, no 
more mothers, no more innocent bystanders fall victim to this 
senseless gun violence. In more than eight years in the U.S. 
House of Representatives, we have passed two bills related to 
gun violence, and still the Senate has not passed one.
    I urge my Senate colleagues to act, and I want to thank 
you, Senator Durbin, but also say it's not just about the 
legislation. We have to invest in communities, and we have to 
invest in people. I'm proud to be one of the sponsors of the 
Prevent Violence Act in the Build Back Better, and hopefully, 
as you said, that'll be a nice Christmas present. Thank you.
    Chair Durbin. Thank you, Congresswoman. Congressman Casten.

                 STATEMENT OF HON. SEAN CASTEN,

            A CONGRESSMAN FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

    Congressman Casten. Thank you, Chairman Durbin and the 
Committee for hosting this hearing. As you know, I've only been 
in Congress now for two terms, and it strikes me that this is a 
monumentally easy problem that we talk about the wrong way. We 
just have too many guns. If we get rid of half the guns in the 
country tomorrow, we'd still have more guns per capita than any 
other country in the world. Until we talk about that, we're 
talking about the wrong problems.
    Today I do, though, want to focus on gun trafficking, as 
the subject of this hearing. The ATF has reported that nearly 
60,000 guns are trafficked across State lines every year. 
Chicago police have seized more than 36,000 guns in a recent 5-
year span, which is more than police in Los Angeles, New York, 
Houston, and several other major U.S. cities have seized. In 
this year alone, Chicago police are on track to recover over 
12,000 guns, which will be a record high and more than New York 
City and Los Angeles combined.
    When I asked some folks at the Chicago Crime Lab a while 
ago what it is that we're doing wrong, they said, ``Well, New 
York and Los Angeles are not driving distance to Indiana.'' In 
Chicago, guns trafficked across State lines comprise about 60 
percent of the total number of illegally possessed guns. 
Indiana--one State, Indiana--is the primary source for 
approximately one in five crime guns in Illinois and Chicago. 
One single gun stolen from a shop in Wisconsin was linked to at 
least 27 shootings in Chicago before it was removed from the 
streets. We're only as strong as our weakest link, and in spite 
of the good laws that we've passed in Illinois, we're 
undermined by the looser laws in our neighboring states.
    In addition to that, as you know well, there is no Federal 
gun trafficking law, so Federal agents have to rely on these 
little weird statutes, like lying on a firearms purchase form, 
to prosecute gun trafficking cases or stop straw purchasers. 
And so, we have to address this issue at the Federal level, and 
as a key first step, simply requiring gun owners to act 
responsibly seems like an easy first move out of the door.
    My bill, H.R. 5245, the Gun Trafficker Detection Act, which 
has been cosponsored by my friend Robin Kelly and Ted Deutch in 
Florida, simply requires that any gun owner must report the 
theft or loss of a gun within 48 hours.
    [Audio malfunctions.]
    Congressman Casten [continuing]. If they do that, they're 
fine. If they don't, and that gun is subsequently used to 
commit a crime, that individual is responsible for civil 
penalties for any crime that goes with that. I think it's a 
commonsense first step, to simply say, ``We respect that people 
have reasonable reasons to own guns. We respect responsible gun 
owners, but we don't respect gun traffickers.''
    As you can probably tell from my tone, I'm getting a little 
sick of these conversations. I've lost track of how many times 
we stand up on the House floor to acknowledge somebody who's 
been shot. I've lost track of how many statements we have to 
make, saying that we've lost constituents or loved ones. We 
tell ourselves, ``We just can't do more because the public will 
isn't there.'' The only thing I know for certain is that 100 
percent of Americans don't want to get shot.
    Thank you. I yield back.
    Chair Durbin. Thanks, Congressman Casten. Congressman 
Garcia.

             STATEMENT OF HON. JESUS [CHUY] GARCIA,

            A CONGRESSMAN FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

    Congressman Garcia. Thank you, Chairman Durbin, for 
convening this very important field hearing today. I'm here, of 
course, as the representative of the Fourth District, which 
includes the southwest and northwest sides and suburban 
communities across Chicagoland.
    I'm here because gun violence is affecting my family, my 
neighbors, and the people that I represent. A little bit over 
two years ago, a 27-year-old young man was murdered in front of 
my home. That murder remains unsolved. Two weeks ago, on a 
Friday night, my wife and I were watching a movie at home, and 
we heard 15 rounds of loud gunfire. I went outside to check to 
see if anyone had been hurt. I called the police. No one came. 
There were no ambulances. Fortunately, it appears no one was 
hurt.
    Friday night, we were watching television again, at 7 p.m., 
and we heard 11 gunshots. We couldn't tell if it was in front 
or in back of our home. No police cars came, no ambulance. 
Fortunately, it appears no one was hurt.
    I'm here today as a parent, as a friend, and as a neighbor. 
For the past 53 years, I've lived in the same neighborhood. 
I've been involved in violence prevention initiatives, working 
with my neighbors and seeking to improve relationships with the 
police, as well. I've known too many people hurt or killed by 
gunfire: young adults, elderly people, children, and of course, 
the friends and families of victims who are left to deal with 
the impacts of gun violence on their lives.
    Something's got to change. What kind of world do we live in 
when our children have to learn to hide from bullets before 
they learn to tie their shoes? Our community is hurting and in 
constant fear. That's no way to live.
    I'm eager to hear today from today's witnesses about the 
cross-jurisdictional strike force created by the Department of 
Justice to address the flow of illegal guns to cities like 
Chicago. As many Chicagoans will tell you, most guns used in 
crimes come from out-of-state dealers. Preventing guns from 
reaching the street in the first place is a crucial part of 
violence reduction, so it's imperative that we address gun 
trafficking at its points of origin, but I want to be very 
clear on this point. There is no single easy solution to 
stopping gun violence in Chicago. To get to the root causes of 
violence, we must acknowledge the multigenerational 
disinvestment and criminalization of poor Latino and Black 
communities in Chicago, and we must fundamentally reinvest in 
those neighborhoods, invest in schools, in health, in care 
services, in criminal justice and police reform, economic 
mobility, and in job opportunities, so that people can stay in 
their communities to live and work without fearing for their 
safety.
    Again, I deeply appreciate the opportunity to attend 
today's field hearing, and I look forward to hearing from 
everyone here, especially panelists and colleagues in the House 
and Senate, to finally make meaningful progress toward curbing 
gun violence in Chicago.
    Chair Durbin. Thanks, Congressman Garcia. The attendance of 
six of my House colleagues and their heartfelt testimony really 
make a difference, and I thank you so much for being here 
today. We know what we hear from the people we represent. We 
know what we feel when it touches our families and people we 
love. They expect us to do something, not just make speeches 
and not just have hearings.
    We've had five hearings so far this year in the Senate 
Judiciary Committee on the issue of gun violence. We are 
preparing now for a markup. You know what's going to happen as 
well as I do, on an 11/11 Committee. But I think it's important 
that Members of the U.S. Senate go on record, be given a chance 
to vote for some of the legislation we've discussed this 
morning, and maybe, just maybe, there'll be a breakthrough in 
that conversation. Thank you for your participation this 
morning. Appreciate it so very much.
    I now want to introduce the witnesses for the first panel, 
as we're changing microphones and nameplates. I'm going to read 
the backgrounds of the witnesses.
    John Lausch, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of 
Illinois, a district that covers 18 counties and 9 million 
people, including the city of Chicago. As U.S attorney, he 
oversees 300 employees, including 155 assistant U.S. attorneys. 
Before becoming U.S. attorney in 2017, he previously served for 
more than a decade as a assistant U.S. attorney, five years as 
the office's violent crime coordinator. BA from Harvard, law 
degree from Northwestern.
    Kristen de Tineo is a special agent in charge of the 
Chicago Field Division for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and 
Firearms and Explosives, known as ATF. This field division 
covers northern and central Illinois, the Northern District of 
Indiana, and the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
    Ms. de Tineo has served with ATF for almost 20 years, since 
2002, working as a special agent in Washington and Los Angeles 
and currently serving as a tactical medic. Prior to joining 
ATF, she served as a nurse corps officer in the United States 
Navy, received her bachelor's degree from Marquette, master's 
from George Washington.
    Dr. Debra Houry--did I pronounce it correctly?
    Ms. Houry. Houry.
    Chair Durbin. Houry? Dr. Debra Houry is the Acting 
Principal Deputy Director of the Centers for Disease Control 
and Prevention, CDC. Since 2014, Dr. Houry has served as the 
Director of CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and 
Control, where she has led research in science-based programs 
to prevent injuries and violence. Before joining the CDC, she 
worked as a physician and professor at the Department of 
Emergency Medicine at Emory University and Emory University 
Hospital. She received her M.D. and MPH degrees from Tulane.
    As is the custom of this Committee, I'd ask the witnesses 
to please stand to be sworn.
    [Witnesses are sworn in.]
    Chair Durbin. Let the record reflect that the witnesses 
answered in the affirmative.
    Mr. Lausch, please proceed.

             STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN LAUSCH, UNITED

           STATES ATTORNEY FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT

                 OF ILLINOIS, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

    Mr. Lausch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning. I 
appreciate being here today to discuss this very important 
issue. I've had the privilege to serve as the United States 
attorney for the Northern District of Illinois for the past 
four years. The district covers 18 counties, with a total 
population of approximately 9 million people. There are 
approximately 150 assistant United States attorneys in Chicago 
and Rockford and another 150 support staff.
    I, myself, was an assistant U.S. attorney in this district 
from 1999 through 2010. During that time, I worked as a deputy 
chief in the narcotics and gangs section of that office, and I 
also served as our office's violent crime coordinator, leading 
the district's anti-gang and Project Safe Neighborhoods 
programs.
    Throughout my tenure, I've had many conversations about 
what's driving violence in Chicago. The answer is never a 
simple one. The causes of violent crime are many and varied and 
can change over time, and that holds true around the country 
and in Chicago. Right now, Chicago, like many places throughout 
the country, is seeing increases in youth violence and violent 
criminals emboldened to a degree that we haven't seen in some 
time. Certainly more than I've seen in some time.
    They are emboldened to carry guns and to use them. 
According to Chicago Police Department data, through December 
5th of this year, there were 756 murders in Chicago, which is 4 
percent more than last year at this time, and 3,347 reported 
shooting incidents, which is up 9 percent. Homicides in Chicago 
hit a several-decade low in 2014, just a handful of years ago, 
when the city recorded 426 homicides. Troublingly, Chicago has 
significantly exceeded this level of homicides in every year 
since 2014, and exceeded it by more than 80 percent in several 
years, including 2016, 2020--last year--and likely this year, 
2021.
    Federal law enforcement's role in fighting violent crime is 
primarily to support the work of the brave men and women in 
State and local police departments who comprise 85 percent of 
law enforcement officers in the country. We are fortunate to 
have strong partnerships with the Chicago Police Department and 
other State and local law enforcement throughout northern 
Illinois.
    Our violent crime reduction efforts in the U.S. attorney's 
office are part of the Department of Justice's overall Project 
Safe Neighborhoods initiative. Project Safe Neighborhoods, or 
PSN for short, is a promising, evidence-based program aimed at 
reducing violent crime. Through PSN, a broad spectrum of 
stakeholders work together to identify the most pressing 
violent crime problems in the community and develop 
comprehensive solutions to address them. As part of this 
strategy, PSN focuses enforcement efforts on the most violent 
offenders and partners with locally based prevention and 
reentry programs for lasting reductions in crime.
    In the last three fiscal years in which they've been 
awarded, our district's PSN grants have provided valuable 
support to the program by funding strategic enforcement 
initiatives, academic research, community outreach, and crime 
prevention and disruption programs. And many of those are 
outlined a little further in my written statement.
    As I noted earlier, violent crime reduction is addressed 
primarily at the local level, by local law enforcement and 
local government and community programs that work to prevent 
it. Indeed, most violent crime does not violate Federal law.
    For example, there's no Federal statute criminalizing 
murder absent special circumstances, such as in a uniquely 
Federal jurisdiction or when committed against an officer of 
the Federal Government, or unless those murders are committed 
as part of a larger criminal enterprise. That's why the most 
effective use of Federal law enforcement resources against 
violent crime is as a supplement and in support of these 
critical local efforts and why, here in Chicago, our Federal 
efforts focus on investigating and prosecuting gangs and other 
groups who work in concert to commit crimes involving violence, 
including murders and shootings, robberies, carjackings, drug 
trafficking, and, of course, firearms trafficking. These 
include prosecutions of members of the large traditional gangs 
that have a long history of violence in Chicago, as well as 
smaller groups, such as robbery and carjacking crews.
    These investigations typically involve multiple agencies 
working alongside local police, most notably the Chicago Police 
Department. The Federal charges we have brought often include 
Federal racketeering and conspiracy laws that are specifically 
tailored to address crimes by individuals acting in concert 
with others who advance the group's interest.
    We supplement these larger investigations with individual 
prosecutions of violent offenders who are driving crime and 
violence in Chicago's neighborhoods. Typically, these 
prosecutions rely on the Federal law criminalizing the unlawful 
possession of firearms by convicted felons. During my time as 
U.S. attorney, we've created a Gun Crimes Prosecution Team to 
enhance our efforts to prosecute those cases. Again, that's 
outlined in a little more detail in my written statement, as 
well.
    We also need to address and are addressing straw purchaser 
and firearms traffickers who enable the unlawful possession of 
firearms and the violence that follows. This summer, the 
Department announced the formation of five cross-jurisdictional 
strike forces, one of which is based here in Chicago, to 
disrupt illegal firearms trafficking.
    As part of the Chicago Strike Force, my office collaborates 
with ATF and other Federal, State, and local law enforcement 
partners in our district and across the country, to help stem 
the supply of illegally trafficked firearms and to identify 
patterns, leads, and potential suspects in violent gun crimes. 
The Chicago Strike Force is enhancing our longstanding efforts 
to hold accountable those individuals or groups who illegally 
traffic firearms into Chicago.
    Finally, public safety in our district also continues to be 
threatened by illegal trafficking of drugs, including heroin 
and other opioids, cocaine, and fentanyl. In particular, we 
focus on those organizations that use violence and firearms to 
protect and to promote those drug trafficking activities.
    I would be happy to discuss today specific examples of our 
violent crime prosecutions, but obviously my time is limited, 
and I'm sure you have questions to ask. For case examples, I 
would refer you and others to a news release that our office 
issued on November 29th of this year, entitled ``Update on 
Federal Prosecutions and Ongoing Strategies to Combat Violent 
Crime in Chicago.'' This release is available on our website 
for the U.S. attorney's office here in Chicago. We release it 
twice a year, and prior releases on our website, as well. We do 
this so that the community knows what we're doing on multiple 
levels to address violent crime in Chicago.
    Thank you again for inviting me today, Senator Durbin, and 
I would be happy to answer any questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Lausch appears appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Chair Durbin. Thank you, Mr. Lausch. Ms. de Tineo, from 
ATF.

             STATEMENT OF KRISTEN DE TINEO, SPECIAL

            AGENT IN CHARGE, CHICAGO FIELD DIVISION,

            BUREAU OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, FIREARMS AND

                 EXPLOSIVES, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

    Ms. de Tineo. Chairman Durbin and Members of the Committee, 
including Ranking Member Grassley, thank you for the invitation 
to appear before you to discuss the efforts of ATF and our 
partners in combating firearms trafficking and reducing 
violence in Chicago. My name is Kristen de Tineo, and I am the 
special agent in charge of ATF Chicago Field Division. It is my 
great honor to represent the men and women of ATF before you 
today.
    As a career special agent, I have served in field and 
management positions across the country, experiencing 
collaboration and partnership everywhere I have served. As the 
SAC of the Chicago Field Division, I draw from that experience 
to lead an extraordinary team of special agents, industry 
operations investigators, intelligence professionals, and 
support staff, in partnership with my State, local, and Federal 
counterparts, to protect the public from violent firearms 
crime.
    The cornerstone of ATF's criminal enforcement strategy to 
address gun violence is crime gun intelligence, or known as 
CGI: the gathering of all known information about the history 
of a crime gun and those who've trafficked, unlawfully 
possessed, or used that firearm. Two key components of crime 
gun intelligence are ATF's National Integrated Ballistics 
Information Network, or NIBIN, and firearms tracing conducted 
by ATF's National Tracing Center.
    ATF's NIBIN system is the only national network that allows 
for the capture and comparison of ballistic evidence to aid in 
solving and preventing violent crimes involving firearms. The 
Chicago Police Department is actively engaged with the NIBIN 
program, using NIBIN machines to enter recovered ballistic 
evidence into our system. To further enhance the effectiveness 
of NIBIN in Chicago, since 2019, ATF's National NIBIN 
Correlation and Training Center has provided correlation review 
services and other support to the Chicago Police Department.
    Correlation review is a challenging aspect of effectively 
using NIBIN because it is labor intensive and time consuming. 
The Correlation Center's highly trained specialists provide 
prompt correlation review and results, helping to ensure timely 
dissemination of actionable leads to investigators. Access to 
the Correlation Center is enhancing the effectiveness of NIBIN 
in Chicago, which is an essential step in identifying, 
investigating, and prosecuting those responsible for violent 
gun crime.
    An equally important component of crime gun intelligence is 
firearms tracing. ATF is the sole agency in the United States 
authorized to trace firearms for law enforcement. The ATF 
National Tracing Center is the only crime gun tracing facility 
in the country.
    Thus far, in 2021, more than 3,000 shootings and over 700 
homicides have occurred in Chicago. These are not just numbers 
on a page. Each of these numbers represent a child who has lost 
a parent, a parent who has lost a child, a family devastated by 
gun violence.
    The ATF Chicago Field Division remains dedicated to our 
mission to build and strengthen partnerships to address gun 
violence. The Firearms Trafficking Strike Force in Chicago is a 
clear example of sustained and focused coordination among 
State, local, and Federal law enforcement partners across 
jurisdictions to disrupt firearms trafficking networks. 
Addressing firearms trafficking is only one component of ATF's 
strategy in Chicago to disrupt the shooting cycle, by 
identifying and targeting those who illegal transfer firearms, 
those who illegal possess firearms, and those who use firearms 
to commit violence.
    These types of investigations and prosecutions span from a 
single defendant charged with illegal possession of a firearm 
to the investigation and prosecution of criminal organizations 
to the cross-jurisdictional investigation of firearms 
trafficking schemes. Examples include in July 2020, a Chicago 
man who fired a gun into the grave of a murder victim during 
his burial service, endangering the mourners, was sentenced to 
15 years in Federal prison after pleading guilty to one count 
of illegal possession of a firearm. Last month, a Federal 
indictment was unsealed charging 13 alleged leaders, members, 
and associates of the Wicked Town faction of the Traveling Vice 
Lords street gang with participating in a criminal organization 
that murdered 19 people and protected a drug-dealing operation 
utilizing firearms on the west side of Chicago.
    In October of this year, a superseding indictment added 
additional carjacking and firearms charges against a Chicago 
man accused of murdering a ride-share driver during a 
carjacking earlier this year. And, also in October, four men 
were charged with Federal firearms offenses for allegedly 
trafficking firearms from St. Louis to Chicago. These examples 
highlight ATF's commitment to impactful investigative work, 
none of which is possible without the strong partnerships among 
State, local, and Federal law enforcement and the U.S. 
attorney's office.
    Under the exceptional leadership of United States Attorney 
John Lausch and with our partners, including the Chicago Police 
Department and the Illinois State Police, we are leveraging 
resources through the Firearms Trafficking Strike Force to 
ensure coordination across jurisdictions to disrupt entire 
trafficking networks from the States where firearms are 
diverted to illegal commerce and, ultimately, to the places 
where they are used in violent crime. We utilize crime gun 
intelligence to focus our resources to effectively meet that 
mission. We are systematically attacking gun violence and 
disrupting the shooting cycle that too often begins with a 
straw purchase, an unlicensed dealer, or a gun theft miles away 
and ends in tragedy in our Chicago neighborhoods.
    Chairman Durbin and Members of the Committee, at the 
beginning of my statement I mentioned that I am a special 
agent, having spent my whole career dedicated to ATF's mission 
of reducing violent crime and working collaboratively with my 
partners. As the head of the ATF Chicago Field Division, it is 
no different. Our mission is accomplished through both criminal 
and regulatory enforcement. We must leverage technology, use 
crime gun intelligence to allocate our resources, but, most 
importantly, stand shoulder to shoulder with our State, local, 
and Federal law enforcement partners to continue our legacy of 
using great partnerships to bring those who inflict unspeakable 
harm on our communities to justice.
    Together, we are making a difference in our communities. 
Thank you for allowing me to appear before you today.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. de Tineo appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Chair Durbin. Thank you very much, Ms. de Tineo. Dr. Houry.

              STATEMENT OF DR. DEBRA HOURY, ACTING

               PRINCIPAL DEPUTY DIRECTOR, CENTERS

              FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION,

                        ATLANTA, GEORGIA

    Dr. Houry. Good morning, Chairman Durbin, Ranking Member 
Grassley, and Members of the Committee. I am Dr. Deb Houry, the 
Acting Principal Deputy Director and, for the last seven years, 
the Director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and 
Control at the CDC.
    I've spent my career split between being an ER doc and a 
public health professional, learning from and hearing from 
families impacted by violence and committing to do my best to 
reduce it. I'm honored to be here today with my justice 
colleagues to represent the public health perspective of 
community violence. Thank you so much for having me, and thank 
you, Chairman Durbin, for your leadership in the prevention of 
community violence and adverse childhood experiences.
    As I was preparing for our discussion today, I thought of 
the trip Secretary Becerra made here last month to hear about 
violence prevention work. Sadly, the importance of the work was 
underscored when, less than two hours after the visit, two 
separate shooting incidents occurred. I know how Chicago is 
directly affected by community violence, and my heart breaks 
for everyone affected, not just for the widely publicized acts 
of violence, but for those who are also impacted by the daily 
violence not heard in the media.
    Violence is, unfortunately, everywhere, from assaults that 
occur in a community to child abuse and even mass shootings. We 
know that it happens in rural and urban communities around our 
Nation. We also know that rates of homicide and injuries from 
assaults continue to increase, and with that, there are 
significant short-and long-term consequences for individuals of 
all ages.
    Youth and adolescents who experience violence as victims, 
perpetrators, or witnesses have experienced what is referred to 
as an adverse childhood experience, or an ACE. Violence 
experienced at a young age can actually change the way a 
child's brain develops. People who experience ACEs are more 
likely to have chronic physical and mental health conditions 
that can lead to an increased risk of suicide, drug overdose, 
and heart disease. This underscores that community violence has 
long-lasting effects on the most vulnerable, children.
    The good news is that violence is preventable. While it is 
critical that we work collectively to stop the violence that is 
occurring right now, we must address the factors that put 
people at risk of either perpetrating or becoming a victim of 
violence as early as possible. We do that by collecting data to 
understand when and why violence and injuries occur and how to 
prevent it.
    The National Violent Death Reporting System is now 
nationwide, and this system pulls data from multiple sources to 
better understand violent deaths. We've also made recent 
investments in data collection in 10 State health departments 
to identify hotspots of nonfatal firearm injuries. These data 
help communities determine what prevention efforts will be most 
appropriate and to improve their ability to respond.
    We also support research and programmatic efforts. For 
example, we fund the Youth Violence Prevention Centers. Each 
center is a local partnership of an academic community 
collaboration that implements and rigorously evaluates 
innovative strategies to prevent youth and community violence 
and, in doing so, builds the evidence base for what works best 
in communities.
    CDC has also supported cities and local health departments 
to engage in youth violence prevention activities. Local health 
departments are well positioned to support violence prevention 
efforts because of their access to data, relationships with the 
communities they serve, partnerships across multiple sectors, 
and experience working with young people. The Minneapolis City 
Health Department implemented Coaching Boys Into Men, which 
encourages nonviolent problem-solving skills through sports. 
After year four of the program, students improved 36 percent in 
recognizing abuse, 47 percent in likelihood to intervene in 
violent situations, and violent crime arrests decreased 20 
percent among youth.
    Because community violence results from multiple factors, 
the use of a single strategy will have limited impact. A 
comprehensive public health approach targets multiple risk and 
protective factors, as well as focuses on both reducing 
violence right now and in the long term.
    Thank you again for the opportunity to be here. I look 
forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Houry appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Chair Durbin. Thanks, Dr. Houry. Let me start with Mr. 
Lausch. We were together on July 22d, when Attorney General 
Garland came to the city of Chicago. We were with the mayor and 
made some important steps that day. It was for the announcement 
of the Chicago Strike Force. I thank you for your leadership in 
that regard.
    The urgency of the problem that we face has been repeated 
over and over again. Let me ask you a very basic thing. After 
the announcement of the creation of this task force, did you 
see an input of any new resources of money coming to your 
office, ability to hire additional people for this purpose?
    Mr. Lausch. At the time, Senator, there was not an 
additional input of resources for money or new AUSAs or things 
like that. What did happen, which was incredibly important, 
was--whenever the Department of Justice prioritizes something 
like firearms trafficking, United States attorneys across the 
country realize that it is a way they need to mobilize the 
resources they have toward that particular area. And so our 
office had already focused on firearms trafficking, but we 
added more resources, more people to focus on cases like that, 
and around the country, it was the same thing. We really 
overall kind of enhanced our efforts to really prioritize those 
cases.
    Chair Durbin. It's a zero-sum situation, is it not? You had 
to take those resources from something else that you were 
spending them on?
    Mr. Lausch. That's what happens, you know, anytime you're a 
prosecutor. You're always prioritizing based upon not only what 
initiative that might come up but what you see on the ground. I 
mean, just to give you another example, when the carjackings 
increased significantly in Chicago over the last couple of 
years, we've spent more time doing carjacking cases than we had 
before, as well. We're addressing the particular issues that we 
see in front of us, so----
    Chair Durbin. I certainly hope that we can improve that 
situation for you at the Federal level by sending the 
additional resources that might make a difference. We read 
about the RICO and VICAR actions that are being taken against 
individuals, to try to break up these gangs. That seems to me 
to be a pretty labor-intensive effort, is it not, among the 
attorneys?
    Mr. Lausch. It is. It's a very labor-intensive effort, but 
it's an impactful one. Just to provide one quick example, one 
of the cases that Special Agent in Charge de Tineo mentioned 
was a recent case we charged. I won't get too far into the 
details. Thirteen individuals were charged. We alleged 19 
murders, 19 attempted murders in that particular case. This 
just came out recently.
    We are already hearing feedback from our local law 
enforcement partners that it's having a positive impact in the 
community. Members of the community see that we are doing 
something to hold people accountable for murders, and also it 
is having a deterrent effect of people not wanting to be the 
next person to get charged federally. It is resource intensive. 
It is something we keep our eye on all the time. It's important 
that we do organizational cases like that.
    Chair Durbin. It's my understanding that, over the years, 
the structure of gangs in Chicago has changed. There was a time 
when there were three or four headliners, overlords, and many 
of them were arrested and imprisoned. I'm told that it's been 
dispersed. There could be a gang that just has a square block 
that they consider their own territory. Doesn't that make it 
difficult to use RICO and VICAR to disperse the gangs, if they 
are proliferating?
    Mr. Lausch. Two-fold. On your initial premise, that's 
certainly a fair statement, and I've seen the same thing, Mr. 
Chairman. We've seen the gangs, you know, the large nation 
gangs broken down by factions. That's certainly something we've 
seen.
    What we've also seen with that is we've seen more violence 
that's based not necessarily on protecting a drug corner, for 
instance. We've seen more violence based upon, you know, 
internal disputes, more violence based upon social media back 
and forth and retaliation. In that situation, we've used VICAR, 
in particular, which is Violent Crime in Aid of Racketeering, 
in order to charge individuals even for one particular murder, 
if it is in furtherance of their racketeering activity. Those 
are still important tools to use, even with smaller groups. 
Your point is a fair one, but that tool can still be effective 
in trying to disrupt the violence of those types of groups.
    Chair Durbin. Let's address straw purchasing for a moment. 
As I mentioned earlier, my wife and I went down to Rita High 
School. There were blocks and blocks of law enforcement 
officials coming to pay their respects to Ella French. It was a 
moving moment. You just sensed that there was deep feelings 
about what happened to that wonderful young police officer who 
lost her life in service to us.
    Straw purchasing generated the gun that killed her. It 
seems to me that that still haunts us, in terms of gun stores 
and gun dealers who are willing to look the other way when 
someone is obviously buying guns they can't personally use, 
either by the nature of the gun or the volume of the purchase. 
I'm told that many times the U.S. attorney's office doesn't 
prosecute these crimes because the penalties are so low, and 
they're just taken as bookkeeping violations. Explain to me 
your attitude toward that and what you've done about it.
    Mr. Lausch. Certainly. We, in our office, and in other 
offices across the country, I mean, we view straw purchasing as 
a serious crime. There are challenges, sometimes, to being able 
to prove those cases. Oftentimes, straw purchasing, I mean, it 
is making a false statement on a form that, you know--at a 
Federal firearms licensee.
    When we are able to prove those cases, you know, prove 
someone guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, we charge them. And 
it's important that we charge them, in order to show, you know, 
potential straw purchasers that they will end up with a felony 
conviction for buying a gun, even if it's for a loved one. If 
it's a loved one who has a felony conviction, they should not 
be receiving that gun. You know, ATF works hard, we work hard 
on identifying the types of cases that we think we'll be able 
to prosecute and make an impact.
    Chair Durbin. Can you produce some numbers to show 
prosecutions for straw purchases and what's happened to them 
over the years that you've been in this office?
    Mr. Lausch. I don't have numbers with me here today. You 
know, Senator Durbin, we'd be happy to look further into that. 
I would point you to our--the press release that I mentioned 
that we put out twice a year. For the last several years since 
I've been the U.S. attorney, we do identify the straw 
purchasing cases that we do, in those circumstances.
    Chair Durbin. If I wanted to legally purchase a gun in 
Indiana, northwest Indiana, from a gun dealer, do you know what 
I'm required to do?
    Mr. Lausch. I don't know specifically what you would be 
required to do. I know in Illinois you would need a FOID card 
in order to purchase that firearm. In other states they have 
their own specific things that they would need to do. One thing 
for sure, if you were a felon, you would not be able to 
purchase that gun legally in the State of Indiana.
    Chair Durbin. Let me ask Ms. de Tineo. Can you tell me what 
I'm legally required to do if I'm a resident of Illinois? Let's 
assume I have a FOID card, and I want to go to Indiana to 
purchase a gun because they have a lower sales tax on firearms. 
What do I have to do?
    Ms. de Tineo. Chairman, that's a good question, in that the 
Federal laws require you to be a resident of the State in which 
you are purchasing the firearm. There are certain ways to do it 
where you can purchase it in Indiana and have it shipped to a 
licensed dealer in Illinois. If you're an Illinois resident, 
you would still need the FOID card.
    If you're asking if you, as an Illinois resident, can just 
go to an Indiana gun store and say, ``I'd like to buy a 
firearm,'' you cannot do that. You need to be a resident of the 
State in which the FFL is located, unless you are having it 
shipped to an FFL in your State.
    Chair Durbin. I can't understand why we have a problem if 
persons from Illinois can't purchase guns in Indiana except 
going through this bureaucracy. What's the problem?
    Ms. de Tineo. A challenging question, for sure. In your 
question, what I was getting at is, if you are a resident, to 
purchase from an FFL, you can do that. In my testimony--you 
cannot do that. In my testimony, I mentioned unlicensed dealing 
as a definite diverter of legal firearms, so--in which case, it 
doesn't matter. You, as an Illinois resident, can then go buy a 
gun from anybody who's willing to sell it to you, who does not 
have a license.
    Chair Durbin. Doesn't have to be a gun show, either, does 
it?
    Ms. de Tineo. No, it does not.
    Chair Durbin. It seems to me that this is a fiction we have 
created, that somehow this Illinois resident is going to go get 
a FOID card, do a background check, go to an Indiana dealer, 
purchase a firearm, then have the firearm transferred by that 
dealer to an Illinois dealer where I would take possession. How 
often does that happen?
    Ms. de Tineo. To be honest, I don't know the answer to 
that. If you're talking about how often do the firearms show up 
in crimes, it's not because they were transferred from an 
Indiana dealer to an Illinois dealer.
    Chair Durbin. What percentage of firearms, do you know, are 
responsible for gun crimes in Illinois that originate in 
Indiana?
    Ms. de Tineo. I don't have the exact number. Illinois, like 
most states in the country, is its greatest source of firearms. 
It makes a lot of sense, in terms of geography. In relation to 
Chicago, we have the western suburbs. We also have Indiana also 
very much in close proximity, but Illinois does remain the 
number one source of firearms for Chicago.
    Chair Durbin. According to ATF records, in Fiscal Year 2020 
the ATF Chicago Field Division conducted 86--86 firearms 
compliance inspections of federally licensed gun dealers. Of 
those 86 inspections, 45 federally licensed gun dealers had no 
violations, 41 found violations of firearm laws or regulations. 
Can you tell me if that was a regular year, an exceptionally 
large number of inspections, or otherwise?
    Ms. de Tineo. Calendar year 2020 was challenging throughout 
the entire country, and differing COVID restrictions, differing 
issues with personnel due to illness and things like that have 
made 2020 a difficult year to look at in terms of numbers. What 
I can say for sure is that in this year, we have hired 
additional industry operations investigators. We have built an 
additional industry operations group in the Chicagoland area 
and have made some significant changes to our management of our 
industry operations program in the field division.
    Chair Durbin. According to ATF data, other field divisions 
conducted significantly more gun dealer inspections in that 
same year, Fiscal Year 2020. For example, the Kansas City and 
Dallas Field Divisions each conducted over 850 inspections. We 
did 86. Why the difference?
    Ms. de Tineo. I think there's a number of reasons that 
could give a difference to that. I spend my time focused on our 
field division and what is most impactful to us. There are a 
number of reasons why there could be differences, including 
COVID restrictions in the areas, including staffing, including 
just overall numbers of dealers. It's important to note that 
Chicago itself is a humongous portion of our field division, 
and there are no federally licensed firearms dealers within 
Chicago.
    Chair Durbin. But ten times the number of inspections in 
Kansas City and Dallas?
    Ms. de Tineo. Senator Durbin, what I think is very 
important in this is to note crime gun intelligence, and we are 
excited to see that some of our other field divisions are able 
to conduct a number of inspections like that, so that when we 
have firearms flowing to us from somewhere else, we do have the 
resources there to look at those dealers. Those numbers don't 
necessary encapsulate everything. If an inspection takes a much 
longer period of time, a dealer that has a humongous inventory, 
it takes a much longer--much greater amount of time to conduct 
an inspection than it does in a smaller dealer with fewer items 
in inventory.
    Chair Durbin. Still, 10 times as many inspections. Let me 
speak to you about ghost guns. In 2016, there were two ghost 
guns that were recovered in Chicago. In 2020, there were 139. 
Last year, you told me--when we met in October, you told me 
that this year, out of 10,000 crime guns recovered by the CPD, 
375 were ghost guns. From two in 2016 to 139 in 2020 to 375 
this calendar year, so far, maybe more now, is this a trend we 
should be worried about?
    Ms. de Tineo. I think it's a trend that we should 
absolutely keep our eyes on. The name ``ghost gun'' is not a 
scientific term for it, but we use it because of the lack of 
traceability. It is a very important trend for us to keep our 
eye on.
    Chair Durbin. Tell me if I'm describing this correctly. 
These people order over the internet the component parts of a 
gun that don't have any serial number identification on them. 
Then they assemble them and use them as you would an ordinary 
gun. Is that correct?
    Ms. de Tineo. Yes. We use the term ``ghost gun'' to apply 
to a privately made firearm. That, by its nature, is not 
required to have a serial number if it's kept for personal use.
    Chair Durbin. I find it hard to believe that ATF's 
regulatory definition of a firearm does not include unfinished 
frames and receivers that can be easily converted into operable 
firearms with ghost gun assembly kits. Have you heard anything 
within the agency about responding to that deficiency?
    Ms. de Tineo. I know that currently there is a NPRM, a 
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, being undertaken by ATF and the 
Department, but that is not something that I have any expertise 
in.
    Chair Durbin. We're going to take a look at that in 
Washington. Mr. Lausch, what specific steps is the U.S. 
attorney's office taking in conjunction with local law 
enforcement to combat carjackings?
    Mr. Lausch. Over time, we have had particular task forces 
that have worked with the Chicago Police Department, and we've 
had FBI, specifically, and ATF working with Chicago Police 
Department to identify patterns of carjackings and, ultimately, 
when there is an individual who is arrested, for us to look at 
those cases to determine whether or not we can charge that 
person federally; if there is a string of carjackings, can we 
charge a conspiracy to commit carjackings; and things like 
that. It has been a significant focus of ours and our Federal 
law enforcement partners for some time now.
    Chair Durbin. I noticed that Sheriff Dart made an appeal to 
the automobile manufacturers to do something to help. Are you 
aware of anything that they are considering or might be doing?
    Mr. Lausch. I'm not aware of Sheriff Dart's outreach to 
them or anything in particular.
    Chair Durbin. I'm just wondering if there--I'm told there 
is more technology in our cars than we know, and it could be 
that there is something they could do where we could trace 
these cars, their whereabouts, after the carjacking.
    Mr. Lausch. What--I can't speak to the car manufacturers, 
what they're doing or not doing. What I can tell you is that we 
use all the tools that we can, both federally and in State law 
enforcement, when there is a carjacking, gathering evidence 
through things like navigation devices and things like that in 
cars, in order to determine whether or not we can, you know, 
follow the vehicles and ultimately, you know, get enough 
evidence to charge people for them.
    Chair Durbin. Ms. de Tineo, I'd like to have you address 
the issue of thefts from gun dealers. Thousands of guns are 
stolen each year from these gun dealers. One of the measures 
that I've introduced with Congressman Brad Schneider of 
Illinois, called the Secure Firearm Storage Act, would require 
gun dealers to secure their inventory after business hours, to 
decrease these thefts. How important is this issue?
    Ms. de Tineo. There are a number of ways that guns are 
diverted from legal commerce, and one of those is by theft. We, 
in the Chicago Field Division and throughout ATF, respond to 
every single theft that's reported from an FFL, because we do 
believe that every one of those guns is destined to be part of 
a crime. It is very important. We do a lot of outreach, in 
conjunction with the U.S. attorney's office, and one of the 
topics that we do discuss with FFLs is encouraging securing 
their inventory and maintaining positive control of their 
inventory.
    Chair Durbin. When you do the inspections, is that one of 
the things you look for?
    Ms. de Tineo. It's not one of our regulations, but it is 
something that we discuss with them when we do our inspections, 
because----
    Chair Durbin. That seems so basic. We know that smash-and-
grab gun up in Wisconsin ended up in, what, 27 different 
shootings before we finally took it out of circulation, and we 
have thousands of guns, each year, as you mention, stolen and 
likely to be involved in crime. I don't know. I think Congress 
has an important responsibility here that we haven't reached, 
and we should.
    Tell me about NIBIN. Is the strike force effectively using 
NIBIN to assist trafficking investigations?
    Ms. de Tineo. Yes. In my testimony, I spoke about tracing 
and NIBIN, both. They are both critical components to us 
allocating our resources and identifying traffickers. NIBIN is 
the ballistics evidence matching, and we use that really to 
shorten our ``time to crime''--so, the moment that we know the 
gun was purchased to the time that it's used in a crime and its 
recovery by law enforcement.
    Chair Durbin. I went on a personal crusade to try to get 
police departments across Illinois, every one of them, to do 
crime gun tracing so that we can at least figure out what's 
happening to these guns, how they're moving around. Is the 
strike force ensuring that ATF's eTrace system is being used in 
these trafficking investigations?
    Ms. de Tineo. Yes. All of our Chicago Field Division spends 
time with our departments, explaining the importance of 
comprehensive tracing to all of them.
    Chair Durbin. As I understand, tracing in our State is done 
through the State police.
    Ms. de Tineo. Tracing is done by ATF. Illinois State Police 
does trace their firearms through us, as do most of the other 
agencies in the area.
    Chair Durbin. What percentage of law enforcement agencies 
do you think are sending this information in to either the 
State police or to you?
    Ms. de Tineo. I wish that I knew the exact percentage of 
it. I know that we have a lot of data that we are able to use 
to focus our efforts every day.
    Chair Durbin. What message would you send to those police 
departments who don't take the time to report these crime guns 
for tracing?
    Ms. de Tineo. I would do the same thing that I've done 
today, at your pleasure, to speak to them the importance of 
knowing the history of a gun and how it enhances efforts to 
stop violent crime in their community.
    Chair Durbin. Thank you. Dr. Houry, it's been quite a few 
years ago that I went to the juvenile facility in Cook County, 
here. These were teenagers, adolescents, waiting for trial, 
sometimes waiting as long as two years. Within the building, 
the juvenile facility, there's a high school with classrooms 
and a cafeteria and a gym, and it looks like a regular high 
school. Of course, the students are confined to the premises 
there.
    I sat down with the counselors to these students and said, 
``Who are these kids? How do they end up being shooters or 
being involved in gangs that are killing people?'' They said, 
``Almost every mental illness that you can imagine, we find 
here, but there is one recurring theme. Over 90 percent of them 
were victims or witnesses of trauma, and it changed their 
lives.'' You've said as much, in your testimony.
    You also said that it's preventable. Violence is 
preventable. The question I need to ask you, and I want it on 
the record, here: ``Is trauma treatable?''
    Dr. Houry. Thank you for that question. Trauma is 
treatable. It's also preventable. When I look at what we can do 
from CDC and with communities, it's really having many 
different strategies to prevent that trauma from happening in 
the first place. Programs in schools that teach youth how to 
mediate conflict, job training programs, hospital-based 
interventions like the HEAL Initiative, really working in 
communities around community greening and connectedness. That 
all provides the protective factors.
    To treat trauma, there's things like trauma-informed care 
and making sure people get linked to the resources they need, 
so that they don't continue to experience that trauma. 
Preventing trauma is something that we're very committed to.
    Chair Durbin. When you look at the issue of trauma and 
consider where we are today, we know that because of COVID-19 
and the interruption of regular school attendance, that several 
things have happened. One of them, sadly, was an increase in 
domestic violence, and one of the ACEs, the adverse childhood 
experience, is being involved in domestic violence or 
witnessing domestic violence. A boyfriend or a husband beats up 
your mother in your presence, and you see it, as a child, and 
it has an impact on you, as it would. That kind of situation.
    We also realize that many of these young people are not 
getting even the most basic counseling, day in and day out, 
because they're separated from the classroom and the teacher. 
Not that every teacher is a good counselor, but many of them 
are, and that's lacking, as well. We have these kids now 
trickling back to school, in and out because of COVID, and 
we're being warned by national experts that there's a greater 
incidence of mental health issues. Would you reflect on that 
for a moment?
    Dr. Houry. Sure. I think, you know, when we look at 
homicides, mental health plays a very small role in it. The 
majority of perpetrators of homicide are not mentally ill. With 
COVID, we certainly have seen an increase in mental health 
distress. We have not seen an increase in suicide deaths. My 
concern is, because of many of the risk factors that you raise, 
we might see an increase in suicide deaths at a later date 
because of economic issues, the social isolation, disruption to 
daily routine.
    When we reflect on what can we do now, given these changes 
due to COVID, we actually have seen a lot of innovation, and 
I'm one of those optimists that believe there's a lot we can 
do. We've seen in South Carolina virtual programs to target 
ACEs, to where families are brought together through 
Strengthening Families. I saw in Colorado they did virtual 
mentoring programs for youth, to have that connectedness.
    I have a 12-year-old who is much more savvy at technology 
than I am and, during the pandemic, was able to have probably 
more playdates and connectedness than pre-pandemic. I think 
really tapping into how do we strengthen those protective 
factors of connectedness, communities that care, and really 
looking at how can you--if it's not that parent, maybe it's 
that teacher, maybe it's that neighbor that you can have that 
mentoring relationship with and look for opportunities for 
additional education or training, even remote. I do believe 
that a lot of these protective factors will mitigate what we've 
seen with COVID.
    Chair Durbin. Years ago, I attended a grade school, Chicago 
public grade school, and they were using meditation as part----
    Dr. Houry. Yes.
    Chair Durbin. Calm Classrooms, they called it. They asked 
me to sit quietly, which is a challenge for a politician--to 
sit quietly for 10 minutes while the kids were at their tables 
and desks and had meditation in the morning. So, I tried. I 
think I pulled it off pretty well. I noticed that in that 
classroom, in that quiet classroom, there was one little boy 
who was not doing well. He was fidgeting and looking around and 
clearly was not happy with this challenge.
    I went to the teacher after the class and said, ``I'm 
guessing the little boy in the checkered shirt there has an 
issue.'' She said yes, and it came down to trauma issue, some 
things that were going on in his home. I said to her, ``So what 
do you do, as a teacher of that boy?'' She said, ``I'm a 
teacher. I teach math. I'm not a psychologist or a counselor. 
I've got to find someone that I can bring in for this little 
boy.''
    That struck me as one of the real challenges. We need more 
and more people who are involved in social work and mental 
health counseling to intervene and treat those who are 
apparently victims of trauma. What is your response to that 
from the CDC perspective?
    Dr. Houry. I think certainly trauma-informed care is really 
important, and I think there can be a lot of training done for 
teachers. In the emergency department, we had to use trauma-
informed care, because many patients would come in and might 
not be happy to see me after a trauma, and seeing me in the 
emergency department could retraumatize them.
    Knowing how to approach a patient in a caring, 
nonjudgmental way--same thing for, you know, teachers in 
schools--not assuming that that child is wearing the same 
clothes from yesterday or didn't complete their homework 
because they're lazy. You don't know what's going on in their 
house, and to approach them with compassion, refer them to 
resources when appropriate--certainly, we need more--I think 
COVID has really shown a light that we need more on prevention 
and public health and treatment. Again, I think going back to 
prevention, if we can have these programs in schools that focus 
on strengthening families, building skills, so that kids have 
what they need to cope, that can even lessen additional trauma 
they might face at a future date.
    Chair Durbin. Thank you, Dr. Houry, and thanks to this 
panel. We're going to be back in touch with you formally and 
informally, perhaps some written questions, but more 
importantly, on an informal basis, to see what we're doing.
    I mean, the fact that so many of my House colleagues came, 
and there are other elected officials in the room who were 
invited to witness this as well, tells you that this is 
something you hear about every day and we hear about every day. 
People are expecting us to be mindful of the challenge that we 
face and do something about it, not just hold a hearing, but 
actually do something. I'm hoping we can do that. I hope the 
resources in reconciliation will help us put money into 
violence intervention. I hope we can find resources, Mr. 
Lausch, to help you on the prosecutorial side, as well as the 
police side of this equation, as well.
    I would be remiss if I didn't mention this, as well. We are 
also living in a period of time when justice inequality is 
being openly discussed, as it should be, in this country. We 
know the George Floyd situation, Laquan McDonald. We know all 
of those instances. I've spoken to police, members of the 
police force around our State, in private and confidential 
settings. I've never heard anybody try to explain away those 
situations. They understand that this was a gross departure 
from what is expected of people in law enforcement.
    We've got to combine ways of effectively reducing crime 
with ways of increasing the relationship and communication 
between members of our community and law enforcement. We've got 
to try to bring trust into this equation. It's not easy. I 
think we all understand it's part of our responsibility, as 
well.
    Thank you so much. Is there any closing comment that anyone 
would like to make? I'll give them the chance now.
    Mr. Lausch. I will--one, Senator, just on your last point. 
I think one of the things that law enforcement focuses on and 
needs to continue to do, in developing that community trust, is 
to hold people accountable for the crimes they commit. I think 
that is critically important. Everything here is critically 
important, but the more that we are able to hold people 
accountable for the crimes they're committing, whether it's a 
murder, a shooting, someone who's possessing a firearm who 
shouldn't have it, or someone who's giving a firearm to someone 
who shouldn't have it, that will help build faith in the 
community. I thought it was worthwhile to make that point, 
because I think that's critically important, to really give the 
community faith in the people that they're working with on a 
regular basis.
    Chair Durbin. Thank you. Thanks for your testimony this 
morning.
    Mr. Lausch. Thank you.
    Chair Durbin. It's timely and important. Dismiss the first 
panel and bring the second panel before us. I'm going to be 
reading their backgrounds as they're being seated.
    David Brown is the 63d superintendent of the Chicago Police 
Department, a position he's held since April 2020. At CPD, 
Superintendent Brown oversees more than 12,000 police officers 
serving and protecting the residents of Chicago. Under his 
leadership, CPD has created a Gun Investigation Team to focus 
on disrupting the flow of trafficked guns. Before joining CPD, 
Superintendent Brown served for more than 25 years in the 
Dallas Police Department, starting as a patrol officer, rising 
to the rank of chief of police. BA from Dallas Baptist 
University, MBA from Amberton University.
    As is the practice of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the 
minority party on the Committee has the right to call a 
witness, and they have called Amy Swearer. Ms. Swearer is a 
legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation's Edwin Meese Center 
for Legal and Judicial Studies, where her scholarship focuses 
on the Second Amendment, overcriminalization, school safety, 
and the intersection of gun violence and mental health.
    Prior to joining Heritage, she clerked at the Lancaster 
County Public Defender's Office in Lincoln, Nebraska; law 
degree from the University of Nebraska's College of Law.
    Roseanna Ander, founding executive director at the 
University of Chicago Crime Lab, created in 2008. The Crime Lab 
partners with cities and communities to use data and research 
to design and test programs that can enhance public safety. 
Under Ms. Ander's leadership, the Crime Lab has supported and 
evaluated violence intervention programs, including Becoming A 
Man, Choose to Change, and the READI Initiative. The Crime Lab 
has also evaluated and supported law enforcement programs, 
including CPD's officer support system, a data-driven early 
intervention system that flags officers at risk for adverse 
events. Ms. Ander holds a BA from Boston U and an MS in health 
policy from Harvard.
    We start with the administration of the oath. I would ask 
you to please stand and raise your right hand.
    [Witnesses are sworn in.]
    Chair Durbin. Let the record indicate that the witnesses 
have answered in the affirmative, and Superintendent Brown, you 
may proceed.

                   STATEMENT OF DAVID BROWN,

               SUPERINTENDENT OF POLICE, CHICAGO

              POLICE DEPARTMENT, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

    Superintendent Brown. Thank you, Chairman Durbin and 
Members of the Committee, and thank you----
    Chair Durbin. Is the microphone on----
    Superintendent Brown. Ah.
    Chair Durbin [continuing]. And pulled close to you?
    Superintendent Brown. Yes. Can you hear me now?
    Chair Durbin. Very good. Okay. Thanks.
    Superintendent Brown. Thank you, sir. Chairman Durbin and 
Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to today's 
hearing on combating gun trafficking and reducing violence in 
Chicago. I would like to also start by thanking Senator Durbin 
for his dedicated leadership here in the city of Chicago and 
across the State of Illinois.
    Today's hearing is only one example of your unyielding 
support for the Chicago Police Department and the selfless men 
and women who don the uniform throughout the State of Illinois. 
Whether it's meeting with officers on the beat or meeting with 
lawmakers on Capitol Hill, we see your advocacy, sir, for law 
enforcement and commitment to making a change.
    I also want to thank President Biden for his steadfast 
support of law enforcement during what is undoubtedly one of 
the most challenging times to be a police officer in the 
Nation's history. Along with several law enforcement and public 
safety advocates, I met with President Biden at the White House 
last summer to discuss ways to strengthen the Federal and local 
partnership to curtail gun trafficking and the violence it 
brings to too many communities across this country and, of 
course, in Chicago. While our partnerships is a healthy 
partnership, more coordination of resources, to make it more 
significant, is needed.
    I'm sure we could all list many important reasons for being 
here today, but the fact remains, there are none more important 
than 4-year-old Mychal Moultry or 7-year-old Jaslyn Adams or 
71-year-old Woom Sing Tse and CPD's own Officer Ella French, or 
any of the other precious lives claimed by senseless gun 
violence. Mychal Moultry was getting his hair cut. Jaslyn Adams 
was at a fast-food restaurant. Mr. Tse, he was simply walking 
to get his morning newspaper, and our brave Officer Ella French 
was fearlessly apprehending a suspect in possession of an 
illegal gun.
    In every instance, someone lost a loved one they will 
always remember, and the city of Chicago lost a neighbor that 
we must never forget, and the Chicago Police Department lost a 
brave and courageous officer. Their lives and their legacies 
are our calls to action. This hearing reminds us of that.
    A vast majority of gun crimes are committed using illegal 
firearms. The firearm used to take the life of Officer French 
was obtained illegally in a straw purchase, underscoring the 
absolute urgency for smart legislation and strategic 
prosecution. If convicted, the straw purchaser faces no minimum 
sentence. We need legislation focused on protecting our 
communities and our police officers by doing everything 
possible to keep firearms out of the hands of individuals who 
should not have them and collaboration across Federal, State, 
and local governments aimed at violence prevention, because we 
will not merely just arrest or prosecute our ways to safer 
communities.
    Over the course of 2021, 93 percent of all murders in the 
city of Chicago were caused by guns. This year, as has been 
recounted by other testimony this morning, we also saw, are 
seeing, more than 700 people murdered, and we remain on pace, 
as well, to recover over 12,000 guns this year. That's the most 
guns recovered in the history of Chicago Police Department. 
Every gun recovered is a potential deadly force encountered by 
our police officers, as well as potentially a life saved.
    While burglaries and robberies are at historic lows, we saw 
a significant uptick in ghost guns, which cannot be traced. In 
2020, Chicago police officers recovered 130 ghost guns. So far 
this year, the latest numbers, we've already recovered more 
than 430 guns, in 2021. Combating gun trafficking and reducing 
violence requires evidence-informed, smart solutions from 
everyone at every level. On the Federal level, I'm proud that 
the Chicago Police Department maintains crucial working 
relationships with Federal partners such as FBI, DEA, and ATF.
    Earlier this year, in July, the Chicago Police Department 
created its first ever Gun Investigations Team to target and 
eliminate the illegal pipeline of firearms flowing through 
Chicagoland. In one of the most successful operations to date, 
the Gun Investigations Team spearheaded an effort that resulted 
in four individuals being charged federally. The team also 
recovered 84 firearms as a result of this investigation and 
several switcher devices, which turn semiautomatic handguns 
into fully automatic submachine pistols with ammunition and 
silencers. Chicago's ATF Task Force Officers, also known as 
TFOs, were instrumental when the investigation crossed State 
lines into St. Louis, Missouri.
    Yet there is no Federal law against gun trafficking. 
Federal sentencing guidelines must reflect the severity of the 
national gun violence problem. Harsher penalties for straw 
purchasers and gun traffickers will send a message. The problem 
of gun violence in Chicago is not a local problem but a 
national problem. Local gun violence in a hub for 
transportation, culture, and commerce undoubtedly impacts 
national security, because gun trafficking is intrinsically 
cross-jurisdictional.
    On a local level, the city of Chicago's efforts have 
included supporting programs for violence prevention and 
reduction with $52 million in funding through our annual 
budget. In June 2020, Mayor Lori Lightfoot launched Our City, 
Our Safety, a comprehensive approach to reduce violence in 
Chicago. Our City, Our Safety is a public health approach to 
community safety that is community centered, data-driven, and 
evidence based.
    This past summer, the men and women of the Chicago Police 
Department, my brothers and sisters in blue, worked with every 
level of local government, as well as with residents and 
community leaders, to implement the mayor's Summer Safety 
Strategy. Using violent crime data over the previous three 
summers, Chicago Police Department identified 15 police beats, 
our 15 most violent beats, which had experienced the highest 
level of violence.
    After dividing those beats into four safety zones, two on 
the south side and two on the west side, we got to work. We 
flooded those zones with police and other resources, including 
both wraparound city-and community-based services. This whole-
of-government approach--nearly every city department and sister 
agency participated, including the Mayor's Office, Department 
of Family and Support Services, the Park District, and the 
Chicago Public Library, to include Chicago Public Schools, city 
colleges, and the Office of Emergency Management and more.
    We targeted resources to specific areas of high need. We 
used data and input and collaboration from the community to 
guide and deploy police personnel, ensuring proactive 
engagement such as foot patrols and community safety. One of 
the zones that we focused on had a 75 percent reduction in 
homicides.
    During this time, the city also dedicated $85 million in 
American Rescue Plan Act and bond funding to bolster violence 
prevention programming for the next three years. As a result, 
the Community Safety Coordination Center is funding and 
supporting violence reduction efforts in those 15 priority 
communities, scaling what we learned over the summer's pilot 
program, focused on those high violence beats and where they're 
located. This work that we're doing is bolstered by an almost 
$400 million investment to support the comprehensive strategies 
identified in Our City, Our Safety.
    Continuing this momentum, and with the right resources and 
strategies, is vital. In addition to finally take aim at gun 
trafficking with robust Federal laws, I ask that you find--I'm 
sorry--fund local law enforcement efforts. The allocation of 
funds for basic investigation and lab equipment, at least 30 
additional fully funded ATF Task Force Officers, and additional 
fully funded FBI, DEA, and Homeland Security Investigations 
Task Force Officers would be invaluable--to the levels that 
LAPD and NYPD have. Chicago falls far short for their TFOs in 
those Federal task forces.
    We need Federal help on the ground for large-scale efforts 
to take down the criminal networks driving violence. Fully 
funded three TFOs reduce the drain on limited Federal resources 
by splitting the cost with CPD and provide CPD officers the 
ability to go after interstate gun trafficking offenders. The 
tracing and testing of guns in Chicago is of national 
importance, since we know these guns cross State lines. A team 
of additional assistant U.S. attorneys dedicated to prosecuting 
criminal networks in the highest-crime districts is necessary 
to follow through on the work done by police.
    With the right resources, safety won't have to be just a 
goal. It can be a standard. Thank you again, Senator Durbin, 
for the opportunity to speak here today and to all of you for 
your leadership and attention on this urgent, urgent, urgent 
matter, and I look forward to taking your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Superintendent Brown appears as 
a submission for the record.]
    Chair Durbin. Thanks, Superintendent. Ms. Swearer.

            STATEMENT OF AMY SWEARER, LEGAL FELLOW,

            THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION, WASHINGTON, DC

    Ms. Swearer. Chairman Durbin, Members of the Committee, and 
fellow Americans, my name is Amy Swearer, and I'm a legal 
fellow in The Heritage Foundation's Ed Meese Center for Legal 
and Judicial Studies. For almost 30 years, this Nation 
experienced a general downward trend in violence, including gun 
violence, even as the number of privately owned firearms 
steadily rose. Then--is that better? Then, very suddenly, in 
early 2020, not just in Chicago but across the Nation, we 
experienced an unprecedented surge in homicide and gun 
violence. The national homicide rate spiked by roughly 30 
percent, the highest single-year increase in the Nation's 
history.
    We could just as easily be holding this hearing in 
Philadelphia, or Portland, or Austin, or even back in the 
Senate building in Washington, DC. Every single person in this 
building, in this room, is here today because we recognize that 
this unparalleled, acute spike in violence and death is a very 
serious problem that we ought to take seriously. We are all 
invested in that same goal of saving lives.
    The question is how we understand the cause of this 
problem, what is driving this spike in homicides and violent 
crime across the Nation, because it's very clear that 
something, or most likely some combination of things, happened 
in 2020 to abruptly reverse that decades-long national trend. 
There has been an unfortunate tendency to resort to standard 
politically expedient talking points to blame, for example, 
surges in lawful gun sales or supposedly lax gun laws in 
neighboring states. As I explain in length in my written 
testimony and as I'm more than happy to comment on in 
questions, these things are not the driving forces behind this 
recent nationwide spike.
    I appreciate Ms. de Tineo's explanation in the first panel 
of interstate gun sales, and I point out that, again, there's 
no private-sale exception for these interstate gun sales. There 
are, I believe, far better answers to the question of ``What 
changed in 2020 that is driving this?''
    In the last two years, this Nation experienced a global 
pandemic, saw several periods of widespread civil unrest, had 
many police departments dramatically alter the deployment of 
their resources, and witnessed the high-profile proliferation 
of anti-police sentiment. As I lay out in my submitted written 
testimony, all of these factors likely played their own roles 
in creating a national environment ripe for violence.
    All of this has been exacerbated by a troubling movement of 
poorly designed bail reforms and lenient prosecutorial tactics 
that routinely jeopardize the public safety. Progressive 
prosecutors in Chicago and in many other cities across the 
country, including in otherwise, quote, ``tough on crime'' 
states, are making a mockery of true criminal justice reform. 
At least, when studies refuse to fudge numbers or exclude 
certain conveniently chosen categories of violent crime, I 
think the data is very clear that these policies, in practice, 
have not properly balanced reform with public safety.
    Here in Chicago, newly implemented bail policies have 
resulted in 33 percent more individuals on pretrial release 
being charged with committing a new violent crime. Given 
abysmally low clearance and arrest rates for these crimes, we 
are almost certainly undercounting that impact. Additional 
evidence is thoroughly laid out in my written testimony, but 
frankly, nothing could capture the breadth of this problem 
better than one recent yet fairly common example that should 
infuriate every person in this room.
    Chair Durbin. Ms. Swearer, I read your testimony, and I 
believe, in all fairness, since we did not invite the Cook 
County State's Attorney's Office to be represented here today, 
that you shouldn't really zero in on any particular individual. 
If you want to speak to the trends, that's certainly your 
right, but because that decision was made by the Committee to 
keep this more at the Federal level, I hope you'll respect 
that.
    Ms. Swearer. Senator, I do, in fact, respect that this is 
something that we are looking at from a Federal level; however, 
when we're talking about what is actually happening in Chicago, 
I think Mr. Lausch, from the first panel, is correct. We need 
to look at, you know, how do things like not charging five 
individuals who shot up a residential neighborhood on a weekend 
on--or on a Friday, who none of which were charged and were 
released on Monday--how does that impact the feeling of 
confidence? How does that build trust with communities? I think 
that is a valid thing to consider, because again, as other 
panelists have pointed out, a lot of criminal justice, a lot 
of, you know, how we actually enforce the law is done at a 
local level. These things matter, and----
    Chair Durbin. I understand that, but what I'm saying to you 
is, there is another side to this story, I believe. I'm not 
here to defend one or the other. We didn't invite the elected 
official that you're referring to who made this decision, and I 
would think that in fairness you should proceed with many of 
the other points that you have in your statement.
    Ms. Swearer. I will summarize that, with respect and 
deference to you, Mr. Chairman, by saying that, again, it is 
one fairly common example that I think points back to this lack 
of trust and the ways in which some of these prosecutorial 
tactics facilitate this violence, because this crime spike is 
not because more Americans have purchased firearms through 
lawful channels this year. It's not because Chicago residents 
can purchase a gun 20 minutes away, in Indiana, subject to the 
same restrictions as if they purchased it 20 minutes away in an 
Illinois suburb.
    It's because millions of Americans suddenly lost their 
livelihoods or had their livelihoods ripped out from under 
them, had their vital social networks disrupted, had all manner 
of serious stressors inflicted on them over an extended period 
of time. It's because the police departments across this Nation 
had abruptly changed the ways in which they deployed their 
resources, in which they responded to service calls and 
interacted with civilians. It's because certain prosecutors 
can't be bothered to pursue criminal charges, and I think not 
just in one case but in many cases where offenders are too 
often released on bail or prosecutions are refused on their 
behalf.
    I think acknowledging the roles that these widespread, 
drastic policy changes played in creating this climate of 
violence may not be as simple or politically expedient as 
blaming lawful gun sales or neighboring states, but it would go 
a long way to saving lives. I look forward to your questions, 
especially with regard to ways in which we can combat the 
effects of these policy changes.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Swearer appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Chair Durbin. Ms. Ander.

                  STATEMENT OF ROSEANNA ANDER,

                  FOUNDING EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,

                UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO CRIME LAB

              AND EDUCATION LAB, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

    Ms. Ander. Good morning, Chairman Durbin, Ranking Member 
Grassley, and Members of the Committee. The University of 
Chicago Crime Lab is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research center 
that designs, tests, and scales data-driven innovations to 
reduce gun violence and to improve our criminal justice system. 
We generate evidence about how the public sector can better 
address these two issues and then design solutions based on 
that evidence. Thank you for the opportunity to share some of 
our findings before this esteemed Committee.
    As has been mentioned, gun violence started surging across 
the United States in 2020. Between 2019 and 2020, there was the 
largest 1-year rise in the homicide rate in 50 years, and that 
increase unfortunately has spilled into 2021. Chicago has been 
particularly hard hit. The city is on track to end the year 
with close to 800 homicides, a 3 percent increase relative to 
2020 and a 60 percent increase relative to 2019. Those numbers 
don't begin to tell the full story.
    The data show that there has been a widening safety gap--I 
might say a safety gulf--in our city between the safest and 
least safe neighborhood. In 2020, the homicide rate in 
Chicago's 4 most dangerous police districts was 25 times higher 
than in the 4 safest. In 1991, the rate was 13 times higher, 
meaning that since the 1990's, the gap and basic safety has 
doubled in Chicago. The brunt of this burden is 
disproportionately borne by our city's Black neighborhoods. 
That alone should motivate us to act.
    Adding to that is the ripple effect of gun violence, which 
goes far beyond the direct victims and even their immediate 
families. Just to offer one example, our Crime Lab affiliate, 
Princeton sociologist Pat Sharkey, has shown that children who 
take academic assessments in the days following a homicide in 
their neighborhood looked as if they'd missed two years of 
school. Multiply that, day in and day out, across our country. 
What we are doing to our children and to our Nation's future 
should demand urgent and deliberate action.
    Many are framing what has happened over the least two years 
as a ``crime crisis.'' That is not accurate. In the United 
States, several types of even violent crime are down, including 
robbery, rape. The property crime has continued its years-long 
decline. We don't have a crime crisis. We have a gun violence 
crisis.
    To that end, I'm encouraged that so many components of the 
Build Back Better bill are backed by data and research that 
suggest they would help save lives in 2022 and beyond, but 
first it's important to understand what gun violence in America 
actually looks like. There's an idea that most gun violence is 
rational, or preplanned, or carefully thought through, but in 
fact a huge share of murders in the United States are not 
motivated by money, or robberies, or wars between gangs, or 
crews over drug turf. They're very often the result of an 
argument that spins out of control. Here in Chicago, fully 
three-quarters of shootings stem from an altercation that 
happens to take place within reach of a gun.
    That means that one way to reduce gun violence is to make 
those situations in which those arguments occur more forgiving. 
The best way to do that is to limit the widespread availability 
of illegal guns. By the Crime Lab's estimate, illegal gun 
carrying in Chicago increased by over 100 percent in 2020, 
likely driven by guns trafficked into Chicago, many from 
outside of Illinois. Without the presence of a gun, 
altercations would still happen, but they would be far less 
likely to result in death. That's why if Chicago, with its 
existing gun laws, were an island, the city would not have a 
gun violence crisis. Weaker laws at the Federal level and in 
many neighboring states means Chicago and Illinois bear the 
cost of others' policy choices.
    Fair and effective policing is also critical to help 
deescalate arguments and to deter illegal gun carrying. 
Policing being, quote, ``fair and effective'' is key. Research 
shows that when the relationship between police and communities 
erode, the public's willingness to report crimes declines, 
making people more likely to turn to self-enforcement and 
retaliation instead of the criminal justice system.
    Ineffective, overly aggressive policing also causes 
significant individual harms that are disproportionately borne 
by communities of color and, in particular, our Black 
residents. For too long, policymakers have viewed reducing gun 
violence and reforming the criminal justice system as 
inherently in tension, but to truly increase public safety, we 
must find solutions to do both. Reducing low-level arrests, 
particularly drug and misdemeanor arrests, while focusing more 
surgically on disrupting underground gun markets and illegal 
gun carrying, are two complementary efforts.
    In addition, there are other investments that we can make 
right now that would also address the situations that lead to 
gun violence. The Build Back Better bill currently being 
debated by Congress would help finance many of these data-
driven and evidence-informed investments. The bill includes $5 
billion in funding for community violence intervention 
programs, or CVI programs, which help people navigate complex 
and often high-stakes situations that could lead to violence 
before they do and interrupt the cycles of violence once they 
start.
    At the Crime Lab, we've conducted randomized control 
trials, the gold standard in medicine, of several CVI-related 
programs that show enormous promise. Two of these are the 
Choose to Change program and Becoming A Man, both of which 
connect young people at elevated risk of gun violence 
involvement with trauma and behavioral science-informed 
services and supports.
    Crime Lab researchers found that participation in BAM can 
cut violent crime arrests among youth in half and boost the 
high school graduation rates of participants by nearly 20 
percent. Preliminary research of Choose to Change shows a 
similar impact on participants' violent crime involvement, and 
the impacts persist far after the intervention itself ends, a 
finding that is truly remarkable and still all too rare in 
social science.
    Another CVI program, READI Chicago, reaches the men truly, 
truly at highest risk of gun violence involvement. Thirty-five 
percent of the READI participants have previously been shot. 
Ninety-eight percent have been arrested at least once, with an 
average of 17 prior arrests and, I would argue, missed 
opportunities to do something different, to offer other ways to 
intervene. These are men for whom our society provides 
absolutely no safety net.
    READI is changing that. While preliminary, our research 
shows that men who participated in READI have far fewer arrests 
for shootings and for homicides. Build Back Better also 
incentivizes State and local zoning reforms and expands 
programs like housing choice vouchers and community development 
block grants. These investments would help desegregate 
communities, repair vacant lots, and expand street lighting, 
all of which a growing body of research shows can reduce gun 
violence.
    In short, there are things we can do and places where 
Federal resources can have a particularly vital impact. The 
data shows that by making situations more forgiving, which 
complements our efforts to improve policing, can help stem the 
tide of gun violence. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Ander appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Chair Durbin. Thanks, Ms. Ander. Superintendent Brown, how 
many police do we have in the City of Chicago?
    Superintendent Brown. Right at 11,000, sir. Sorry. Right at 
11,000, sir.
    Chair Durbin. Annually, with retirements and other 
decisions, how many do you have to recruit to make up for 
vacancies?
    Superintendent Brown. We have an annual attrition rate of 
about five percent, so we'd have to recruit that five percent 
number. We're behind because of COVID's impact on our ability 
to test in a room and scale. We had a outbreak of COVID in our 
police academy last summer, summer before last, summer of 2020, 
so we had to shut down our academy due to a COVID outbreak. 
We're a little bit behind the curve, but we have a plan to 
catch up. We have a recruiting team on the ground. We do have 
the impacts of COVID and attrition on our department at this 
point.
    Chair Durbin. How far behind are we, in terms of recruiting 
to replenish the ranks to what they ordinarily reach?
    Superintendent Brown. We currently have about 7,000 
applicants to be a police officer in Chicago. We need another 
7,000 applicants, so we're about halfway where we need to be. 
As far as vacancies, we're nearly 1,000 vacancies, so we need 
to really recruit. By the way, just a shameless plug for 
whoever's listening, our salaries are at $80,000 after your 
training and 18 months, and we have fully funded tuition 
reimbursement.
    Chair Durbin. You've explained this on the basis of COVID. 
Is there anything to do with morale that is affecting the 
number who are applying to become Chicago policemen?
    Superintendent Brown. Yes, there is. Without question, the 
impacts of the vacillations of the political discussion between 
abolish the police, defund the police, and the hypercriticism 
of police have done damage to the psyche of police officers, 
people willing to do this job. Every department in this country 
is struggling to recruit young people who are not coming into 
this profession like they have in the past. We have to be more 
aggressive in our lifting up our police and really encouraging 
them that the public supports their efforts and their 
sacrifice, much more than we have.
    Chair Durbin. Could you indicate for us, please, is it more 
dangerous, this day, to be a policeman in Chicago than it was 
last year, let's say?
    Superintendent Brown. Last year we had a 500 percent 
increase in the number of officers shot at or shot. Five 
hundred last year, and we are surpassing last year's numbers so 
far this year. It is, without question, not only the most 
challenging time to be a cop but the most dangerous time to be 
a cop.
    Chair Durbin. Could you explain that? There are various 
theories. You've heard what--the witness sitting next to you 
has her theory. What is your theory about why it is more 
dangerous?
    Superintendent Brown. I think there's various issues. I 
wouldn't point to one thing. Similar to the rise in violence, I 
think there's some concern about trauma, the impacts of trauma 
in communities, but clearly part of the formula for why, the 
brazenness that offenders have, is we need more consequences, 
as well.
    We need some of our people--not going back to the mass 
incarceration era. No one wants to go back to that, but there 
are some violent people that need to be held in jail till 
trial. They're dangerous to the community, and they need to be 
held in jail. That discussion doesn't mean I support or anyone 
supports mass incarceration. That's just protecting us all. The 
people who would harm us need to be held, when they're charged, 
when they're stopped constitutionally, when they're in 
possession of an illegal firearm. They need to be seeing real 
consequences in the criminal justice system.
    Chair Durbin. I assume you were in the room. If not, I 
mentioned earlier that my wife and I went to Rita High School 
for the memorial service for Ella French.
    Superintendent Brown. Yes.
    Chair Durbin. It was an outpouring of support from the law 
enforcement community the likes of which I've never seen. 
People were standing blocks long, in queue, waiting for a 
chance to pass by and pay their respects. Can you describe the 
impact that that killing had on the Chicago Police Department?
    Superintendent Brown. Just tragic. Resonated throughout. 
Young cops, very veteran cops all weeped, and we continue to 
grieve. That was just in August. We continue to grieve her 
loss.
    What is also infuriating is that that straw purchase--
purchaser that bought the gun and gave it to the offender who 
used it on Ella, causing her death, walked in and out of 
Federal court because it was basically an administrative 
violation to buy a gun. There was no real serious consequence 
for a straw purchase of a gun used to kill a police officer.
    That just--it's the only untoward word I've had, to John 
Lausch, which I know it's not his issue, but the fact that this 
person walked in and out of Federal court as a straw purchaser 
that caused the death of a police officer should make us all 
sear with anger. The pain throughout our police department 
continues to resonate.
    Chair Durbin. I might add--I think we should--the other 
officer was gravely wounded. He survived, I believe, but he----
    Superintendent Brown. He survived, yes.
    Chair Durbin [continuing]. Some serious, permanent injuries 
as a result of that shooting.
    Superintendent Brown. Yes, Officer Yanez. It's just a--
Carlos is a walking miracle, that he's able to walk and stand 
on his own. We were with him this past weekend, delivering 
gifts to him and his family. It's a miracle that he survived. 
This offender not only shot and killed Ella, but also seriously 
wounded Carlos Yanez, and tried to kill a third officer who was 
on scene. Thank goodness we were able to capture this offender 
and bring him to justice.
    Chair Durbin. You make the point--I mean, it affected my 
wife and myself personally just to see the outpouring of 
emotion for Ella French--that the straw purchase is considered 
to be a bookkeeping offense, at this point, when someone who 
legally can purchase a gun because they have no criminal record 
are doing so, hand it over to someone who cannot legally 
purchase a gun.
    That is more than a loophole. That is a just tragic 
situation that there's no explanation for, and I believe that 
that drives it home more than anything I could possibly say. I 
have legislation to change that. I want to make it a serious 
offense. I also have to tell you, I think that the licensed gun 
dealers have a responsibility, too. They know better.
    Superintendent Brown. That's right.
    Chair Durbin. They have to know better, when someone is 
purchasing a gun or a volume purchase of guns that this just 
isn't for their personal use. There's something else going on 
here, and we've got to open our eyes to it in this situation.
    On the morale side of it, let me say, as well, I can't 
recall exactly when it occurred, but I asked for a meeting with 
some members of the Chicago Police Department, and I met with 
two groups. The first--and this was how long ago? Maybe one of 
my staff remembers. I went down to the training academy, and 
they'd just put up a notice that said, ``There's a politician 
who's going to have an off-the-record meeting. If you want to 
come by and tell him what you think, drop by.''
    Well, they sure did. There probably were 15 or 16 in the 
room, Black, white, and brown, men and women. Some were 3-year 
veterans and some were 20-year veterans in the police 
department. We talked about everything imaginable that affected 
them, at least in the Federal debate that was going on at the 
time.
    Of course they had their own point of view on some things. 
The media reporting they didn't think was always complete and 
accurate, and they felt that not enough information was given 
to the public before they drew conclusions about what happened 
in a given circumstance. The split-second decision which some 
police were making was somehow elongated, in the press version, 
to look like it was a much different experience. You know, you 
must run into that, yourself, when you're talking to members of 
the force.
    Superintendent Brown. Yes, sir. It's no doubt in my mind, 
Senator, you make the right points here, that there is a silent 
majority of this country that supports our officers, but our 
officers only hear the loud minority of people who 
hypercriticize and really come across as not supporting or even 
understanding that they're sacrificing their lives for our 
safety in this country, that they're doing all they can to push 
back against violent people that would harm them, to the point 
of making the ultimate sacrifice like Ella French did. You 
know, I would just echo your sentiments, but I would also ask 
the silent majority to speak up more in their support of our 
police officers, to keep them encouraged so that our morale can 
be boosted.
    Chair Durbin. I want to add, too, that--this is important--
I think there is an appropriate role for social workers and 
psychological counselors. There are many times that police are 
drawn into domestic violence situations, which are not really--
shouldn't be law enforcement confrontations, but rather there's 
a need for some psychology, and mediation, and conversation. I 
think those resource people could supplement and even replace, 
many times, what the police are doing in their line of duty.
    I want to add something that the mayor shared with me a 
couple weeks ago when she came to Washington. Many of these 
social workers and psychological counselors are making the 
point to her that they're willing to do this, but they want a 
policeman accompanying them, for obvious reasons.
    Superintendent Brown. Right.
    Chair Durbin. They're risking their lives when they go into 
some of these volatile situations. Could you comment on that?
    Superintendent Brown. Yes. There's no doubt--I've been on 
the record, in my career, saying we're asking our police 
officers to do too much in our society, and we need others to 
step forward, like mental health professionals and other social 
workers. I fully support those coresponder models where subject 
matter experts in other professions, like psychology, 
psychiatry, and other social work, respond with our officers. 
There may be an occasion where we can triage, at the 911 
centers, these calls, to where we can more do followup. Some 
may be about someone taking their medication that obviously 
doesn't have access to quality mental health care. Again, 
support the sentiment of others in the social service work 
coming forward, helping our police officers, and the fact that 
we're asking our police officers to do more and more and more 
in society that we just are not equipped to do.
    Chair Durbin. Would you comment on concealed carry and open 
carry in the State of Illinois? Do you think that the 
provisions in the State law are overly strict prohibitions on 
the public?
    Superintendent Brown. Every situation that involves 
conflict, when you add a gun, it's more dangerous. I'm a big 
proponent in the fact that guns make us less safe, not more 
safe. I'm totally against this idea of a good guy with a gun, 
from a law enforcement perspective, because we can't discern 
who the good guy with a gun is, nor have I seen a good guy with 
a gun make a situation safer. Lacking that evidence, I don't 
know how we--any of us--support this idea of more guns in 
society.
    Chair Durbin. Also this concept of vigilantism, that 
volunteers will step in the situation and try to assume the 
responsibilities of police, the point that you just made--how 
is the policeman going to know whether that person carrying an 
AR-47 or whatever the firearm happens to be--how are they to 
know whether that person is truly ``on their side'' in a life-
and-death, split-second decisionmaking situation?
    Superintendent Brown. You won't know, sir, and it will just 
make the situation less safe. The officer's having to make even 
more split-second decisions about, who is this person with the 
gun, open carry, concealed carry, taking action in a role that 
they haven't been trained at? Nor have we considered all of 
their biases. You know, this action of vigilantism in Black and 
brown communities, in my mind, having grown up in a Black 
community, born and raised in a high violent area, having a 
vigilante taking action just makes it seem like more chaotic, 
less safe for all of us.
    Chair Durbin. You allude to this, and I'd like you to say a 
few more words, if you would. The lack of trust between many 
members of the Black community and the men and women in blue is 
part of the problem in getting to the solution part, closing 
the case, taking the people off the street. Have you seen 
anything that you could point to that is a change in this or a 
breakthrough?
    Superintendent Brown. Yes. We have seen progress, although 
we have much more to do in building trust. This year, the 
Chicago Police Department is solving more homicides than they 
have in over 16 years. We've solved over 360 homicides this 
year, mostly due to that trust with the community coming 
forward.
    One example is Mr. Tse, who I recounted in my opening 
comments was walking, he was shot and killed. The Asian Chamber 
of Commerce came forward with a license plate number, with 
video, within minutes to our officers, to our detectives, 
allowing us to capture that offender within an hour and charge 
him with first degree murder.
    Without the community, that would not have happened. We're 
seeing progress in building trust, more community members 
coming forward. There's much more work that needs to be done in 
building trust, though.
    Chair Durbin. Ms. Ander, there's been a question raised 
about the bail reform in the State of Illinois, and those of us 
who have considered this understand that sometimes people are 
pulled over for a driving offense, they're violating some court 
order that said that they were not supposed to, until they paid 
a certain fine, drive again legally, and they're caught in the 
process of doing that and incarcerated, and a bail is imposed 
that they can't pay. They are literally in a debtor's prison 
situation and sometimes jeopardize their job. Have you had an 
experience with this?
    Ms. Ander. The point that you raise, I think, really is 
illustrative of the fact that we are missing an opportunity, as 
I said in my testimony, to both reduce the harms of the 
criminal justice system, which is the aspiration of bail 
reform--how do we take the things that create all kinds of 
unintended harms that are really not providing a public safety 
benefit and move away from using those levers so that we can 
much more focus the back end of the system, the criminal 
justice system, on the things that are doing the greatest harm? 
That really is gun violence.
    I think what has been lost in a lot of the--at least the 
public discourse about bail reform in this country, and in this 
county, is this notion that it's either we can dramatically 
reduce the number of people that are sitting in jails, 
pretrial--but that comes at the expense of increasing gun 
violence. That's a false choice. I would say to do both of 
those things together does require being data-driven and 
evidence-informed, and I think that we really have much more 
that could be done, and I think all parts of the system need to 
be a part of that working together effort so that we can make 
sure that when we are depriving someone of their liberty, which 
should be an incredibly high bar, that there really is a public 
safety threat that's been understood, so that we're not, as you 
said, creating a debtor's prison and, frankly, net-widening and 
pulling people deeper and deeper into the criminal justice 
system that provides no public safety benefit.
    Chair Durbin. You mentioned READI Chicago. I visited some 
of their facilities, and I've also met with Eddie Bocanegra, 
whom we all know--an amazing life story--who is proving every 
single day that many of these souls can be saved, if we care 
and if we approach it the right way. I hope this violence 
intervention funding that we're looking at in the 
reconciliation bill can help along those lines. Thanks to the 
Crime Lab. You do terrific work.
    Ms. Swearer, during a July 2020 appearance on One America 
News, The Tipping Point, you said that it's, quote, 
``absolutely false'', unquote, that Chicago's gun violence 
problem is a result of the city being inundated with out-of-
State guns. You argued that claim is based on a 
misrepresentation of Chicago's 2017 gun trace report. That 
report does, in fact, show that 60 percent of the guns 
recovered in Chicago crimes originated from out of State. Do 
you want to clear up what you said in that newscast?
    Ms. Swearer. Sure, I would absolutely love to give further 
context to this, because this is important. As other panelists 
have noted, the reality is that it doesn't matter where 
individuals--where residents in Illinois are buying their 
firearms. Whether it's in Illinois or across State lines, they 
are going to be subject to those same background checks or 
subject to the same laws and requirements that they would be in 
Illinois. Nothing has changed, regardless of whether they're 
buying it in an Illinois suburb. They're not buying it in the 
city of Chicago because, as others have noted, there are no gun 
stores in the city of Chicago.
    The fact that--the general proximity of many of these guns 
stores in Indiana, the fact that there is no Cook County-
imposed extra tax on those guns, is very clear that, yes, there 
are going to be people who are going to either lawfully or 
unlawfully buy guns across the border in Indiana. That has 
nothing to do with Indiana's gun laws. They are simply 
violating the same types of laws they would be had they 
illegally purchased the guns from a private seller or stolen 
them in in Illinois. The point is that whether it's across the 
border in Indiana, that's not having an effect on crime itself 
in Chicago.
    Chair Durbin. Superintendent Brown, how would you respond 
to that claim that out-of-State guns are not a driving force in 
Chicago violence?
    Superintendent Brown. I would just say this. People who 
have violent criminal backgrounds, who are in possession of 
illegally possessed guns, regardless of where they buy them 
from--and the data speaks for itself--is the driver of violence 
in Chicago. It is without question. Offenders we charge with 
murder, first degree or otherwise, have a gun illegally, and 
most, if not all, have a previous violent criminal history. 
That's just the basic facts. I always, Senator, say this, you 
know, everyone's entitled to their opinion but not their own 
facts.
    Chair Durbin. In April, the city of Chicago filed suit 
against Westforth Sports, a northern Indiana gun shop, alleging 
the shop knowingly sold firearms to gun traffickers who, in 
turn, sold them to people who are prohibited from purchasing 
them themselves. That one gun shop was the source of over 850 
crime guns recovered in Chicago between 2009 and 2016.
    I would think in situations like these that cracking down 
on gun trafficking and the licensed dealers that encourage it 
is critical, whether they're in Indiana or any other place. 
Certainly, we've been able to trace many of these guns back to 
Indiana. I'm hoping that Mr. Lausch can get a cooperative 
bistate, multistate effort, regional effort to bring a close to 
this.
    Those are all the questions that I have for this panel. I 
thank you for your testimony. We--this field hearing of the 
Senate Judiciary Committee has made it clear that we have work 
to do. Senator Patrick Leahy has a statement he'd like to enter 
into the record, and that will be done without any objection.
    [The prepared statement of Senator Leahy appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Chair Durbin. I'm going to do all I can, as a Senator from 
the State and Chair of the Committee, to address this 
challenge. As I mentioned, this is our fifth hearing on gun 
violence. We'll keep at it next year. I will not stop pushing 
to bring Chicago the Federal resources and attention it needs, 
to encourage collaboration, and to support law enforcement.
    I want to say, it's been recommended to me, and I think 
it's good practice that those of us who appreciate--the men and 
women in uniform who get up every morning, put on the badge 
that you're wearing, and risk their lives for us deserve our 
gratitude. I'm going to make a point of saying so when I see 
them. We want the very best in the job. We're not making 
excuses for those who aren't, but the vast majority of those 
women and men are dedicated to protecting the public for the 
right reasons.
    I'm going to continue to push Federal agencies to do all 
they can and more. I'm going to keep working with the 
stakeholders in this State and in Washington. I thank our 
witnesses for attending today, and I thank my colleagues. A 
number of them stayed on for the entire hearing. That shows 
your attention and interest in the matter, as well. And at this 
point the Senate Judiciary Committee field hearing stands 
adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 11:16 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
    [Additional material submitted for the record follows.]
    
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