Roy Blunt: “as we all know and as any American who has watched the news over the summer knows, there has been a terrible increase in…”

“as we all know and as any American who has watched the news over the summer knows, there has been a terrible increase in crime in America's cities. Assaults, shootings, murders have been higher this year, and my home State has not been safe from this trend. In fact, in St. Louis, MO, there were 55 murders in the month of July. That compares to 22 murders a year earlier in July, which we thought were way too many then. In Kansas City, MO, homicides in the first 6 months of this year were about 40 percent higher than they were last year. One of the Kansas City victims was a 4-year-old boy named LeGend Taliferro. He was murdered in the early hours of July 29 while he was asleep--a 4-year-old boy murdered while he was asleep--by a random shooting, violence going on outside his home. So early in July, the Justice Department launched an effort in Kansas City that has become a national effort, which they called Operation LeGend, named for little LeGend Taliferro. Under Operation LeGend, Federal law enforcement officers are working alongside local police to solve crimes, to make arrests, to track down fugitives, and to prepare cases for trial so criminals can be held accountable. The key phrase there is ``alongside.'' Federal agents aren't going in and taking over the police department; they are going in to add assistance to the police department. On that topic, there was no immediate raid of trafficking centers or drug gangs or anything like that.…”