CHICAGO — Mayor Rahm Emanuel finally has something to show for his repeated pleas for help from the Trump Administration — a pledge by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to bring federal charges against gun offenders.
Sessions said in a statement that he had ordered federal prosecutors to bring more gun-related charges "to deter the most violent offenders."
Federal and state prosecutors should work together and "use every tool we have to put violent offenders behind bars and keep our citizens safe,” Sessions said.
Emanuel traveled to Washington, D.C., in February and met with Sessions and other officials in the Trump Administration. More federal gun prosecutions were high on the mayor's wish list, as he and other city officials worked to stop violent crime, which rose last month even as compared with record levels of shootings and murders in 2016.
"The attorney general and I agree on the need to increase federal gun prosecutions in Chicago, and strengthening this crime-fighting tool will be a welcome step for cities across the country," Emanuel said in a statement.
However, federal officials have not responded to Emanuel's plea for more agents to be assigned to Chicago to help fight gang and gun violence or more funding for after school and summer job programs as well as efforts to help ex-offenders and to mentor teens and young adults.
Emanuel has also urged federal officials to help the city renovate the CTA Green Line, which runs through the South and West sides.
Joseph Fitzgerald, a spokesman for Zachary Fardon, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, did not immediately respond to a question about what the attorney general's order would mean in Chicago.
Since taking office, Trump has put Chicago's struggle with violent crime in the national spotlight nearly a dozen times — as he often did during the presidential election — most recently during his first joint address to Congress Feb. 28.
Emanuel Thursday expressed optimism that state lawmakers would approve a bill pending in the General Assembly that would increase the penalties for those convicted of repeat gun offenses.
