Crime teams

The "Crime Teams" Story:

So there's this story from the AP:

A violent crime spike in four cities led the Justice Department on Friday to dispatch additional teams of federal agents to combat guns, gangs or surging murder rates in Mesa, Ariz.; Orlando, Fla.; San Bernardino, Calif., and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

All a long way from here. But let's consider the general tactic. The story sheds some light on the problem of Federal officers butting into local business.

The report, released Friday by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine, warned of problems with federal crime-fighting task forces. It concluded the teams duplicate efforts and compete for help from local authorities while failing to communicate among themselves. The poor communication, in particular, resulted in three so-called "blue-on-blue" cases where federal agents mistook each other for criminals.

Those incidents, which the report found "put officers' safety at risk," included:

_An undercover ATF agent and informant in Chicago bought a loaded gun from an informant working for the FBI's Safe Streets task force.

_FBI Safe Streets agents in Atlanta pulled over a member of a U.S. Marshals Service fugitive task force whose car matched the description of a suspect both teams were looking for.

_ATF agents working an undercover sting at a Las Vegas gun show arrested a suspect for illegally buying firearms. The buyer turned out to be an informant working for the FBI — even though the ATF had taken steps to make sure there would be no overlap between federal agencies.

Fine's inspectors studied task forces in eight cities: Atlanta, Birmingham, Ala., Camden, N.J., Chicago, Gary, Ind., Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. Nearly 130 task force members in the cities reported working on at least 45 duplicate investigations.

Let's be honest here: I'd rather have the crime. Nonviolent criminals cause me no trouble to speak of; violent criminals, encountered in the course of their felony, may be shot. Either way, I'm entirely prepared for any problems that may occur.

Federal agencies running around engaged in entrapment, arresting each other, and so forth -- that's a separate problem for which there is no easy solution. A man may deal with all but the most organized crime himself. Few men have the resources to deal with the government, when one of its mistakes enwraps him. It seems to make sense, then, to restrict Federal involvement to only organized-crime matters of the first order.

The rest are better dealt with locally, or personally.

UPDATE: This, on the other hand, is what the Federal government is for.