MILWAUKEE — As part of a meeting with Southeast Wisconsin prosecutors and law enforcement, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland visited Milwaukee to speak about wide scale efforts at the federal, state, local and tribal levels to decrease fentanyl usage in Wisconsin and overall violence in the state.
Garland began his speech touting the efforts of local and federal partnerships in addressing violent crime — something he attributes directly to slowing the growth of narcotics use and distribution as well.
“We have deployed our anti-violent crime strategy here in Wisconsin and across the country to arrest violent felons, to disrupt violent drug trafficking, and to prosecute the repeat offenders who are most responsible for driving violent crime,” Garland said. “For this U.S. Attorney’s Office, that has meant working with state, local, and Tribal law enforcement, as well as with our federal partner agencies, to stop the flow of fentanyl into Wisconsin communities.”
Citing Milwaukee Police Department statistics, Garland highlighted a 10% drop in crime and 39% decrease in homicides through the first quarter of 2024 compared with the previous year. He said this fell in line with a dramatic national decline that he called “the largest drop in homicides in 50 years;” despite acknowledging this national shift is not having the same impact on certain disproportionately impacted communities.
From here, Garland began to detail a variety of arrests including that of an Oshkosh man who pointed his gun at children, several pharmacy robbers, the 25-year sentence of a Green Bay man who sold counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl, and a 20-year sentence for someone who sold fentanyl-laced drugs that killed a teenager.
Garland highlighted the impact fentanyl is having on the nation, and more specifically, Wisconsin’s tribal population — another epidemic that disproportionately impacts those communities.
“Fentanyl is the deadliest drug this country has ever faced. And this office will continue to use every tool at its disposal to go after all those who profit from this deadly epidemic,” Garland stated. “I know that this U.S. Attorney’s Office will not rest until every person, in every neighborhood, in every community in Wisconsin is safe from violent crime.”
He gave specific props to U.S. Attorney Gregory Haanstad, representing the Eastern District of Wisconsin, and the full team of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
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