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Photo: Max Parrott/QNS
Ahead of the District Attorney election, Melinda Katz addressed Queens’ recent spike in gun violence.
Katz outlines plan to fi ght against gun violence
BY MAX PARROTT
mparrott@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
Queens Borough President and District
Attorney candidate Melinda Katz held a
conference on Tuesday, Oct. 22 to present
her plan to use the offi ce to fund programs
aimed at reducing gun violence.
With two weeks until the Queens DA
election, Katz joined a group of clergy and
at-risk youth leaders predominantly from
southeastern Queens to call for a collaborative
response to the borough’s spike in
gun violence over the past year.
“It’s critical for the Queens District
Attorney’s offi ce to become a community
partner. Th e centerpiece of our plan up
here today is to implement guns as a public
health issue and to treat it as such–to
treat violence as a contagious disease, one
that can eff ectively be treated and prevented,”
said Melinda Katz.
Katz said that as DA she would use the
offi ce’s criminal asset forfeiture funds on
the organizations that run job trainings,
mentorship programs, drug treatment
programs, mental health services, re-entry
programs, and aft er school programs.
According to NYPD CompStat data, the
number of shooting victims in Queens
increased from 117 to date in 2018 to 127
victims in 2019. Th e biggest jump in this
number, however, did not occur in southeast
Queens but in the northern half of
the borough where the victims went from
33 in 2018 to 42 this year.
Katz said that she would use what she
deemed a “public health response” to
these statistics, meaning she would try
to reduce arrests through funding mentorship
and advocacy work in high-risk
communities.
In addition to more engagement and
funding for faith- and community-based
organizations, Katz said that her approach
would include longer sentences for gun
traffi ckers, a 24/7 gun-buyback program,
and increased training for law enforcement
and school offi cials on the use of
Red Flag laws to take guns from individuals
who they consider to be a threat to
themselves or others.
Besides cracking down on gun traffi
ckers, Katz focused mostly on preventive
eff orts instead of prosecution. In her
speech, she did not make mention of how
she would prosecute weapons possession
charges — an area that has proven controversial
for Brooklyn District Attorney
Eric Gonzalez.
In approaching weapons charges,
Gonzalez has made prominent use of
diversion programs, an option which permits
certain off enders to plead guilty and
join a community programs instead of
going to jail.
When asked by QNS how much
she plans to use diversionary plans in
response to weapons charges, Katz said
that she believed the primary problem
facing the offi ce was not illegal possession
but gun traffi cking, although she showed
support for such programs
“I am a true believer in diversionary
programs, especially for low-level criminal
activity,” Katz said. “But the Cure
Violence groups, the mentorship groups,
the workforce development programs–all
the programs we provide–we need to fi gure
out how to get people into those programs
so even if they have a violation, or
if they’re arrested for illegal weapons, they
don’t do it again.”
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