LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- FBI agents and local police officers have made strides in recent years breaking up gangs in Louisville, part of a long-term plan to reverse the city's rising gun violence issue.
Sixteen arrests over the last few years have all but dismantled the O'blocc gang, which federal agents said is one of the largest federal takedowns of its type in recent Louisville history. And earlier this year, four members of the Ross family gang were sentenced in connection to a drug trafficking ring in apartments in the Newburg area.
Louisville has somewhere between 15 and 20 active gangs, a rarely stated but long understood fact that federal agencies say is the root cause of many of the city's homicides.
"Many times, gangs are involved in violent crime," said Shawn Morrow, special agent in charge with the Louisville Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). "They're involved in armed drug trafficking and they're involved in some retaliatory violence."
As of June 13, Louisville Metro Police's latest numbers show non-fatal criminal shootings and homicides are both up this year compared to the same time period last year:
Non-fatal Criminal Shootings:
• 2023: 199
• 2022: 1192
• Year-to-Date Change: 4%
Homicides:
• 2023: 75
• 2022: 71
• Year-to-Date Change: 5.63%
"In Louisville particularly, we have a lot of firearms-related crimes," Morrow said. "Unfortunately, we're off to a bad start for 2023. I know that's what the community is concerned about. What's important is ATF is prioritizing violent crime. LMPD is prioritizing violent crime, as is the rest of the law enforcement community in Louisville."
Back in January, six men were arrested after more than 600 gunshots were fired near a Hikes Point apartment complex early on New Year's Day. LMPD said it can't definitively say this was gang-related, instead calling it a shootout between "two groups." Along with the arrests, police recovered five stolen vehicles and eight guns.
"When you look at firearms seizures in Louisville, LMPD will take between 2,000 and 2,500 firearms in custody on an annual basis," Morrow said. "Up to 20% of those guns were previously reported stolen."
Louisville's gang prevalence is on track with at least one nearby city. The FBI in Indianapolis said there are about 16 confirmed organized criminal gangs in that area. The FBI in Cincinnati said its violent crime squad has never publicly released any numbers on potential gangs.
"Gang crime is certainly attributable to a fair amount of the crime in our communities," Morrow said. "The reason it's problematic is when you have individuals working together to commit crime, they're more organized in their ability to obtain firearms, to move guns from one individual to the other."
In many cases, Morrow said, it's a relatively small amount of people committing a lot of the city's crimes. He said it's not uncommon for someone involved in a shooting to then be involved in several more.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is working to stop criminal groups too. The agency just finished "Operation Last Mile," in which agents have, over the past year, targeted people affiliated with the Sinaloa and Jalisco Cartels out of Mexico. With affiliates here in Louisville, the groups are responsible for fentanyl and meth distribution. The DEA said those cartels use violent local street gangs and criminal groups to get the drugs to local communities.
For this operation, DEA agents in Louisville arrested 137 people in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia, seized over 1.7 million doses of fentanyl, 554 pounds of meth and 621 guns.
"We live in an area that is considered a source area for firearms," Morrow said. "There are a lot of guns here. There are relatively few state regulations compared to some other states."
It's a multi-faceted approach through which the FBI, ATF and DEA are working together with local police to try and stop the drugs, gangs and guns.
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