BRONZEVILLE — With a growing gang violence problem that now extends outside the city limits, the Chicago Police Department and the Cook County Sheriff's Office have announced a partnership to combat the problem, officials said Wednesday.
Interim Police Supt. John Escalanate and Sheriff Tom Dart said it is their hope they can "leverage the full strength" of each law enforcement agency to specifically combat gang and gun violence plaguing not only Chicago but some of its suburbs as well, Dart said.
"Guns and gangs don't have borders," Dart said at a press conference at police headquarters Wednesday. "This is not a Chicago problem. It's a county problem, a state problem."
The partnership comes as gun violence has dramatically spiked in Chicago in the early weeks of 2016, including the Tuesday shooting of four high school students a mile from Police headquarters that Escalante and Dart did not discuss.
Escalante said the partnership will see sheriff's deputies join up with Police patrols in strategic areas that have seen the spike in violence.
"We are targeting areas that are plagued by violence," Escalante said. "We want to have an increased visibility in these areas."
Dart said his office knows that suburban gangs work closely with city gangs, and that a new collaborative effort will be undertaken to root out the gangs.
"We have the intel that tells us that," he said of gang collaboration. "We're sharing that information better, more quickly."
The partnership started Tuesday in Austin and in Lawndale, and the effort has already produced results, police said. There were at least two gun arrests made that afternoon, said Anthony Guglielmi, Chicago Police spokesman.
The departments have worked closely together for years, both agencies acknowledged.
A Police news release said a "similar" partnership with the sheriff's office netted 110 guns, two stolen cars, 80 counterfeit credit cards, 219 warrant arrests and 43 felony arrests.
The agencies said this partnership will be different and permanent. It will focus specifically on gangs and guns in concentrated areas, the agencies said.
Generally, the sheriff has jurisdiction over evictions, the serving of warrants and checking in on parolees with electronic monitoring, Dart said. But now the Police Department will also have a hand in those missions, helping to use city's gang intelligence to target those on the county's list who might have a hand in violence.
"Together we are going to send a clear message, a unified message, that gang violence in our communities will not be tolerated," Escalante said.
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