Russell Coleman

Those that live in Louisville’s so-called “tough neighborhoods” do not have a violent-crime problem. We as a city have a violent-crime problem.

We face some thorny challenges that prevent many of our neighbors from flourishing; from doing things like walking home from the hospital after experiencing the birth of their children without being murdered or relaxing at a kitchen table eating birthday cake on a quiet Sunday night without a bullet ending a young life. It’s unacceptable that our neighbors have a constant, legitimate fear of being affected by gun violence. If we are to be one city and one Commonwealth, then we must reject the notion that the increasing violence that screams from the local news impacts only those who reside on the wrong side of some tired old “divide.” It demands a response from all who live in and love this city.

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As United States attorney, I offer both a promise and a plea. I promise a more muscular and visible response by federal law enforcement collaborating with our state and local partners in targeting the most violent offenders threatening Louisville families. If you shoot someone, shoot at someone, carry a firearm as a convicted felon, use a gun to assist in trafficking in your poison, we will use every tool afforded us under the law to send you to federal prison for a significant period of time; this includes the teenagers who, often facilitated by social media, use guns to settle conflict.

In law enforcement, the unique emblem on our badges has historically been a limiting factor to full cooperation with other agencies, departments, or jurisdictions. That is not the case in Louisville now. The U.S. Attorney’s Office; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; FBI; Drug Enforcement Administration; U.S. Marshals Office; Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office; Kentucky State Police; Jefferson County Attorney’s Office and Commonwealth’s Attorney Tom Wine stand with Louisville police in targeting the trigger-pullers that are killing and maiming our neighbors here. There are remarkable people who carry a variety of badges in protection of our city, and they are united.

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I also bring a plea. While we will vigorously enforce the law, arresting our way out of this problem is not, alone, a long-term solution. Some quarters of Louisville have generational challenges driven by a host of causes, among them historic racism that imposed shameful inequities and structural barriers to inherited wealth and opportunity. Along with robust law enforcement, we must also scale up a commitment to our neighbors to address this ill inheritance.

While privileged to serve in this office, I have encountered a number of optimism-inducing efforts doing just that. Whether it’s the Louisville Urban Leagues’s track and field project slated for imminent groundbreaking, its job training or housing efforts, the Urban League is creatively and with great energy investing in the great potential of our city. Simmons College is continuing to build upon its proud tradition of providing education as a means to build individual and family opportunity. And I was grateful to tour the year-old W.E.B Dubois Academy within JCPS that is cultivating future leadership in some truly inspiring young people. These are just a few examples from myriad ongoing efforts across Louisville to aid our neighbors, but they all need our time, talent and treasure to be sufficiently impactful.

We will enforce the rule of law in our city. You will see more federal raid jackets shoulder-to-shoulder with our Louisville police partners to remove the most violent trigger-pullers from Jefferson County regardless of age. Our neighbors must be able to feel safe in their homes, their playgrounds, their front porches. There is no “them” or “those neighborhoods” with violent crime problems in Louisville; we are one city and one commonwealth. We must respond accordingly.

Russell Coleman, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Kentucky, is the area's top federal prosecutor based in Louisville.