NORFOLK, Va. — Multiple cities in Virginia are banding together to get more badges on the street and keep criminals behind bars. The goal of this new public safety initiative is to make Virginia a safer place to live.
According to FBI statistics, more than 16,000 acts of violence occurred in Virginia in 2021.
On Monday, Governor Glenn Youngkin, along with Norfolk city leaders and law enforcement, unveiled Operation Bold Blue Line, and he hopes it will decrease crime rates.
"It’s said that poverty creates crime, but crime also creates poverty because when people are looking over their shoulders constantly, they aren’t thriving," said Attorney General Jason Miyares.
Last year, state leaders and law enforcement said the murder rate in Virginia had been the highest it had been in years.
"Sixty-one people were murdered last year making it the deadliest in 25 years," Miyares said.
What's more tragic, he said, is that 2022 is on track to be even worse, with 51 Virginians who have lost their dreams after being murdered.
Operation Bold Blue Line addresses violent crime in communities across the Commonwealth, and it comes with a five-step initiative including the strengthening of policing on the streets.
"I'm proposing the following concrete steps: a $31 million recruitment campaign to bring in sworn law enforcement heroes from different states, especially those that do not support law enforcement, they want to come here," Gov. Youngkin said.
Some other initiatives included hiring more prosecutors to put and keep criminals behind bars, as well as supporting witnesses and victims.
"Without victims willing to testify prosecutors and law enforcement cannot do their jobs and put these repeat violent offenders behind bars," Miyares said. "To support this, my office with the Governor's office will work with the General Assembly to fund the Victim Witness Protection Program."
Those funds will be used for reasonable lodging relocation expenses and transportation to make sure victims feel secure and protected to testify, according to the Attorney General.
Norfolk Commonwealth Attorney Ramin Fatehi released a statement Monday evening in response to Gov. Youngkin's initiative, saying while it has potential, he's disappointed that the "Governor and Attorney General try once again to pit prosecutors against police by deploying time-worn, divisive rhetoric regarding prosecutors 'unwilling' to punish violent crime."
"I know of no prosecutor in Virginia unwilling to do so; progressive prosecutors like me believe in focusing our resources on addressing and prosecuting violence," according to Fatehi. "I have focused on violent crime every day since I took office.
He said the governor's plan to hire "Assistant Attorneys General to serve as Special Assistant United States Attorneys (SAUSAs) has the potential to harm the effort to fight violence."
"I believe in federal prosecution; I have served as a SAUSA myself, and I employ one of the only SAUSAs currently working in Virginia," he said. "But in this era of critically understaffed prosecutors’ offices—with approximately one-third of Commonwealth’s Attorneys across Virginia struggling to fill vacant positions—a move to hire prosecutors into the Attorney General’s Office will strip experienced trial lawyers out of local offices where elected Commonwealth’s Attorneys need them most. In fact, the Attorney General’s Office was soliciting applications from local prosecutors just last week at a state gang-investigator conference."
Fatehi said he's urging the governor and attorney general to "support the full funding of Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Offices as they did for police, both to satisfy a decades-long underfunding of our felony prosecution obligations and to amend Virginia law to require and fund local prosecutors to be involved in misdemeanor prosecutions."
The full statement from Fatehi is below.
