Sneed has learned that the feds plan to dispatch 65 FBI agents to the streets in high-crime areas on the South and West Sides in an all-out battle against gang crime.
The 65 feds are part of a group of 100 Chicago agents already assigned to curb gang and violent crimes.
“This is a new tactic the FBI is using in fighting crime,” an FBI spokeswoman said, “by working in a concentrated area and a concentrated time on the street — although the FBI has been working hand in hand and day in and day out with the police department.”
A top police source tells Sneed the FBI agents, who will be working in tandem with the Chicago Police Department, will be assigned to do gang suppression missions on Thursdays and Fridays for at least the next three to four weeks.
“It’s mind-boggling,” the top police source said. “It’s almost unheard of.”
“I thought the mayor and the police superintendent had said they don’t need more police on the streets,” the source added.
Sneed is told the FBI plans to develop intelligence and conduct surveillance on street-corner drug dealers, which will “lead to somebody else talking, possibly lead to an arrest and to the seizure of guns,” a second police source said. “We have to go to where the problems are and that means working the streets.”
Sneed also is told that new FBI Director James Comey and Robert Holley, the special agent in charge of the Chicago division, are eager to build relationships with local police.
This disclosure follows in the wake of an announcement that 40 Illinois State Police troopers will partner with Chicago Police officers in a fugitive apprehension task force.
“They will be going after the worst of the worst, looking for people wanted on murder warrants. The fugitives may be wanted on the South Side, but who knows where in the city they’re hiding,” the top police source said.
The state troopers will be organized into “surge teams” made up of five CPD officers and two state troopers and tasked with catching those with “known violent criminal histories who are wanted by law enforcement,” the governor’s office said last week.
In July, seven additional ATF agents were assigned to Chicago to help reduce gun violence.
