Reprinted with permission from the Reminder Newspaper December 13, 2005
WINDSOR — When U.S. Attorney of Connecticut Kevin O’Connor spoke at the inaugural breakfast meeting of a new series of discussions at the Beth Ahm synagogue on Palisado Avenue Dec. 4, the conversation quickly turned to the increase in local gang activity.
“When I speak in community groups, the biggest concern I hear from parents is not ‘Gee, I’m concerned that the Planning and Zoning Commission is corrupt’,” he quipped. “It’s more, ‘How is my son or daughter going to be able to go to school without being approached to sell drugs, or beaten up?’”
O’Connor said that the state is experiencing a resurgence of gang activity, with towns like Windsor and Manchester seeing gangs trying to recruit members not only in high schools but also in middle schools and, even, elementary schools. “Many of the people who had been incarcerated in the 1990s are now being freed and return to the communities where, in true ‘Blues Brothers’ style, they try to restart the band,” he said.
His office the U.S. attorney said, understands the situation very well and has been proactive in dealing with it. — “Last week we trained 1,000 local and state police officers in [how to deal with] gangs in Connecticut,” O’Connor said. The training, he explained, focused particularly on how law enforcement personnel can pick up signs that people they see on the street are gang members from the hand signals and, their clothing.
O’Connor complained that many residents don’t really understand the danger young people face.
“People will say ‘Well, if they are in a gang and they are not committing crimes, what’s the big deal?” he said. “I have never met a gang yet that exists for humanitarian purposes,” he answered.
The main problem, he explained, is that gangs have been mainstreamed even by respectable companies like Chrysler, which uses Crip member Snoop Dog to advertise its cars. Even worse, he said, gangs are marketed to kids as something that is cool.
“The police can’t solve this problem,” he stressed. “It’s the schools, it’s communities [who can do this.] The key is to get these kids to make the positive choice of not joining a gang. [Because] once they go into a gang nothing good is going to happen.”
O’Connor explored
at his presentation “Fighting Federal Crime in
Connecticut,” a subject in which the U.S. attorney has a
long experience in, including stints on both the defense and the
prosecution. He graduated with high honors from the University of
Connecticut School of Law, has practiced commercial litigation
and white collar criminal defense, and has served as Corporation
Counsel for the Town of West Hartford, and as Staff Attorney and
Senior Counsel at the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission.
In 2002 President Bush appointed him Connecticut’s 48th
United States Attorney, a position in which he was confirmed by
the U.S. Senate.
“Essentially, I am the chief federal
law enforcement officer in Connecticut,” O’Connor
explained, and added that federal law enforcement agencies like
the FBI, the ATF, the U.S. Marshals and others report to him, and
through him to the president. It is, he pointed out, a mission so
broad that the 65 lawyers and about 100 employees he oversees are
barely enough to carry it out.
His first major function is to represent the government in civil cases, he said. “If somebody slips and falls at the post office, they are essentially suing the U.S. government, and I am the U.S. government’s lawyer in Connecticut,” O’Connor said.
O’Connor said there is a friendly adversary that contributes a lot to his workload.
“I always tease Dick [Attorney General Richard] B l u m e n t h a l that he is a full employment act,” O’Connor said. “As he is suing the Department of Defense on the base closings, and the No Child Left Behind, and this person and that, he alone can keep my entire office busy responding.”
The second role his office performs, O’Connor said, is to handle criminal cases for the government.
“And our criminal jurisdiction is incredibly broad,” he stressed. “Over the last 30 years Congress has really federalized almost every crime imaginable.”
O’Connor said there are certain law enforcement areas that only his people can handle. “Most sophisticated white colar crimes, are really only going to be prosecuted on the federal level,” he said. “Whether it is a significant environmental case, significant corporate fraud cases, or public corruption, they all involve sophisticated accounting issues, contracting issues. And we have the resources of the FBI, and a lot of the agents of the FBI I would describe as accountants with guns.”
And, of course, his office is responsible for prosecuting corrupt officials, but more importantly violent crime, which O’Connor characterized as the breadand-butter of federal law enforcement.
O’Connor’s
address was followed by a question-and-answer session, during
which members of the audience talked about their own concerns.
Among them, was the new threat of terrorism the country faces,
and the new tools that laws like the Patriot Act have put into
the hands of law enforcement officials.
“Reasonable people can disagree on
the Patriot Act – about how much power your government
should or should not have,” O’Conner said. “But I
think that what it really comes down to is whether you trust your
government to do the job that you asked it to do.”
“As the US attorney,” he concluded, “I come and go. But the men and women who work for me are career employees. And I have to tell you, they are conscientious, they are underpaid, and they are very, very brave. And they are doing a great job at it.”
Let’s face it. To solve the gang problem communities should convince young people to stay in school, says Kevin’ OConnor, Connecticut’s U.S. Attorney.
With our thanks. Michael Fagan, co-president of Congregation Beth Ahm, hands Kevin O’Connor an award commemorating the occasion.
©Reminder Newspaper 2005