Jeff Sessions addresses violent crime, gangs: 'This is not acceptable in America.'

Speaking to a standing-room-only crowd of about 100 federal, state and local law enforcement officials at the U.S. district courthouse in Memphis on Thursday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions expressed appreciation for law enforcement and addressed violent crime. He said that "every lawful tool" will be used to "take the most violent offenders off our streets."

Citing a 43-percent increase in homicides last year in Memphis, he said "these aren’t just numbers.

"These are people, our citizens whose safety and lives are at stake everyday," he said. "They are people like the residents in Sycamore Lake Apartments here in northeast Memphis. Last week, two men were shot there and killed during a drug deal, according to the local detectives who worked the case. Tragically, this is not an uncommon thing there; since 2014, seven people, including a soon-to-be mother and her unborn baby, were murdered in just that apartment complex."

Sessions also decried incidents of violent crime in other cities, saying "this is not acceptable in America.”

Congressman David Kustoff, who welcomed and introduced Sessions, said law enforcement has been under siege for the last several years and that the country is facing an uphill battle with violent crime.

However, he said he believes "our law enforcement here is some of the finest and most capable law enforcement anywhere in the nation," he said. "West Tennesseans don't back down from a challenge."

Linking drugs, crime and death, Sessions addressed opioid abuse, urged protection of the country's southern border and vowed to dismantle transnational cartels, drug trafficking and gangs.

"If you are a gang member, know this: You think you are targeting us. Well, we are targeting you," he said. "We will find you. We will devastate your networks. We will starve your revenue sources, deplete your ranks and seize your profits. We will not concede a single block or single street corner to illegal gangs."

Sessions said 230 more Assistant United States attorneys will be hired nationwide, and he reiterated that he has empowered federal prosecutors to "charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense in each case."

To reduce opioid abuse, deaths and crime, he said prevention programs "in the long run are the most important and effective thing we can do."

He thanked law enforcement and vowed that the Department of Justice will support and back officers. He also said the DOJ will "stand firm against wrongdoing or abuse or civil rights violations by our police."

Sessions arrived in Memphis on Wednesday night to meet with officials, law enforcement and faith leaders on Thursday.

He asked faith leaders for advice they could share about what is effective in Memphis, said DeAndre Brown, executive director of Lifeline to Success which works with ex-offenders. Brown met with Sessions in a group of about a dozen people.

"What has worked for us is the ability to build relationships with individuals," Brown said. "When you only want to incarcerate you don’t get to the root of the problem. You’re recycling people."

Pastor Keith Norman said he was invited to meet with Sessions but chose not to attend. He said it appeared to him that Sessions' platform has already been built and that he had already made decisions to enforce stiffer penalties which is "opposite of any agenda I would have wanted to discuss with him."

More than 100 demonstrators from the Memphis chapters of the NAACP, Black Lives Matter and other groups urged officials to boycott Sessions and gathered outside Memphis City Hall before marching to the federal building to protest his visit.

Following Sessions' speech, Congressman Steve Cohen likened Sessions' remarks to "something out of the '50s or '60s."

Cohen said there is a “smart way to attack crime and there’s a dumb way to attack crime. The dumb way is to return to the era where we failed because we locked up so many people at 30,000 a year that the only people that were happy about his approach are the private prison industry who make money out of people’s miseries and crime."

Steve Mulroy, a professor of law at the University of Memphis, called Sessions' priorities misguided.

"Charging the harshest way possible is not required by law, and is opposite from the direction our mass-incarceration-crazy society needs to go," he said.

Sessions has addressed law enforcement in other states, including to Missouri, Texas, Virginia and New York after being sworn in Feb. 9.

He mentioned the violent crime in Memphis, as well as Baltimore, Chicago and Milwaukee, in speeches this year. 

In Memphis last year, 228 people were killed, breaking a previous record of 213 in 1993. There have been 84 homicides in 2017 compared to 91 during the same time frame last year, according to the Memphis Police Department. 

On Monday this week, three people were injured in a shooting during a vigil for an 18-year-old girl who was killed last year Downtown.

On Tuesday, a 15-year-old girl was arrested and charged with killing a 17-year-old boy last month outside a store in Binghamton.

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland met with Sessions on Thursday and requested more federal resources to fight violent crime, including grant funding, more agents for the Multi-Agency Gang Unit and Organized Crime Unit and to continue a collaborative review of the police department with the federal Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.

Memphis police Director Michael Rallings applauded Sessions for meeting with clergy and community partners.

“We all have a role,” Rallings said. “We cannot expect law enforcement to solve every problem that plagues society.”

 Rallings and his command staff gathered briefly outside the federal building after meeting with Sessions.

“I think it went well,” Rallings said quickly before walking into City Hall.

Memphis Police Deputy Director Mike Ryall said that “it was very positive. A good collective back and forth.”

The Commercial Appeal reporter Ryan Poe contributed to this report.