ST. LOUIS — Attorney General William Barr was in St. Louis on Thursday to lead a roundtable discussion on Operation Legend with state and local law enforcement.
U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Jensen of the Eastern District of Missouri and St. Louis police chief John Hayden attended.
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner said Barr coming to St. Louis for a crime summit on less than a day notice is an insult to the people of the City of St. Louis. Below is Gardner's full statement:
Operation Legend first launched in Kansas City, Missouri in July and has since expanded to several other cities. The initiative is named in honor of 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who was shot and killed while he slept early in the morning of June 29 in Kansas City.
On Sept. 22, officials said more than 200 people have been charged with federal crimes in St. Louis since the beginning of Operation Legend.
According to the Department of Justice, Operation Legend is a “sustained, systematic and coordinated law enforcement initiative in which federal law enforcement agencies work in conjunction with state and local law enforcement officials to fight violent crime.”
The operation was expanded to Chicago and Albuquerque on July 22 to Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee on July 29 to St. Louis and Memphis on Aug. 6 and to Indianapolis on Aug. 14.
The day the program was announced in St. Louis, protesters gathered outside the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department while the press conference to announce the program was happening. Some chanted, “take the feds with you.”
