Feb. 5, 2002 – The U.S. Justice Department has awarded the V.I. Justice Department a grant of $240,000 to be used to hire special prosecutors for criminal cases involving firearms.
"The role of these prosecutors will be to concentrate on prosecuting crimes in the territory where guns are implicated," a Government House release distributed on Tuesday stated.
The grant is for three years, and Attorney General Iver Stridiron anticipates hiring one special prosecutor for St. Croix and one for the St. Thomas-St. John district, plus support personnel.
Stridion said his office is seeing an "escalating number of gun violence cases … Guns are being confiscated in staggering numbers for such a small territory, and we welcome the ability to hire additional prosecutors who can be assigned exclusively to prosecute these cases."
In the release, Gov. Charles W. Turnbull said the grant is part of his administration's ongoing war against crime involving firearms. "From where I live, I, too, hear and am alarmed at the nightly gunfire from the Savan and Garden Street areas," he said, adding that "this lawlessness must stop."
The governor said more police officers "are being deployed in affected areas" and that "the hiring of additional prosecutors under the Bush administration's Gun Violence Prosecution Program is a welcome addition" to the locally available resources.
