Tulsa Receives $800,000 from the Department of Justice's Public Safety Partnership to Support Crime Reduction Efforts

TULSA, Okla.—Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced today the grant awards to Public Safety Partnership member sites that will include $800,000 in funding to Tulsa law enforcement departments and their partners to fight violent crime.

The partnership delivers $10 million in grant awards to support various state, local and tribal law enforcement departments and agencies who battle violent crime. Tulsa was awarded $800,000 to fund ballistic technology and to improve investigative practices through Crime Gun Intelligence Centers. 

The Office of Justice Programs’ Bureau of Justice Assistance, in partnership with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, is awarding $5 million under the Local Law Enforcement Crime Gun Intelligence Center Integration Initiative to encourage local jurisdictions to use intelligence, technology and community engagement to identify unlawfully used firearms and to prosecute those who commit violent crimes.

“This crime-fighting collaboration will be Tulsa tailored. It will provide a data driven, strategic look at the city’s most violent and problematic criminal activity that is infiltrating and harming neighborhoods. Additionally, our Tulsa law enforcement partners, who know our community well, will play an active role in forming priorities and solutions and will further gain invaluable tools, training and focused resources,” said United States Attorney Trent Shores. “Together, we will all move forward in our common mission to stop violent crime and create an environment where our neighborhoods thrive.”

Tulsa Police Chief Chuck Jordan said, “We are very grateful to be receiving this Department of Justice grant, which will formalize Tulsa as a Crime Gun Intelligence Center.  This funding will help support collaborative efforts that are already in place with our federal and local partners here in Tulsa. These resources will help us identify our most violent offenders even quicker, targeting them for enforcement and removing them from our streets.  The Tulsa Police Department has a world class forensic laboratory that supports some of the most gifted investigators and prosecutors in the nation.  I look forward to seeing all that is accomplished with this grant!”

Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler added, “Tulsa County is indeed blessed to have a network of partner agencies working hard to reduce violent crime in our communities.  I am committed to ensuring public safety, and the Tulsa County District Attorney’s Office is proud to be part of this effort.”

Grant recipients include the PSP cities of Indianapolis, Indiana, $798,866; Memphis, Tennessee, $714,055; Tulsa, Oklahoma, $800,000 and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, $634,971.  Other locations include Detroit, Michigan, $800,000; the Albuquerque, New Mexico, Police Department, $452,108, and the City/County of San Francisco, California, $800,000. The jurisdictions will use these awards to hire personnel to utilize the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN), to purchase technology required to operate a Crime Gun Intelligence Center and ammunition for ballistic tests of recovered weapons. 

Attorney General Jeff Sessions made the announcement during today’s National Public Safety Partnership Symposium on Violent Crime in Birmingham, Alabama. The National Public Safety Partnership is a DOJ-wide initiative that enables cities to consult with and receive a coordinated  array of resources from DOJ’s programmatic and law enforcement components: the Bureau of Justice Assistance; United States Attorneys’ Offices; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration; the U.S. Marshals Service; the Office on Violence Against Women; the Office of Justice Programs; the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services; and other federal agencies in order to improve local violence reduction strategies.