As I posted earlier, Inweekly has covered the rise of gangs in Escambia since 2007. We have also reported on the illegal guns in our community.
- Sheriff David Morgan’s war on gang violence led the ECSO to look at curbing illegal guns on the streets.
In November 2011, I covered “Anything for a Buck” – an undercover sting operation run by the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office (ECSO) with the help of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) and the Pensacola Police Department. ECSO had set up a storefront near the corner of Pace Boulevard and Godfrey Street that offered to buy guns, no questions asked.
By the time the operation was shut down after seven months, over 270 guns and more than 2,600 rounds of ammunition had been taken off the streets, a phenomenal number according to Lt. Ray Briggs, who headed the operation for the ECSO.
“The average storefront operation nets about two guns per week,” Briggs told me. “Operation Anything for a Buck averaged eight illegal guns a week, making the operation’s haul one of the largest per capita when the county’s population is taken into account.”
“Percentage-wise, this is the largest number of guns taken off the street in the United States, according to ATF, for the time and effort committed,” said Morgan. “They compare us to Houston, Shreveport and Atlanta.”
Operation ATL Blaze in Atlanta seized less than one gun for every 500 residents. Operation Anything for a Buck seized nearly two guns for every 500 residents. Operation Augusta Ink averaged 25 firearms per month. Operation Anything for Buck averaged nearly 35 guns taken off the streets every month.
Sheriff David Morgan called a press conference on Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2011. When the media was escorted into the training room, there were tables covered with guns – pistols, rifles, sawed-off shotguns and semi-automatic weapons. The U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida, Pamela Marsh, stood at the podium, flanked by Sheriff Morgan, State Attorney Bill Eddins, Santa Rosa Sheriff Wendell Hall, ATF Special Agent from the Tampa office, Virginia O’Brien, and Pensacola Police Chief Chip Simmons.
“The residents of Escambia County and communities across the state can feel a little safer today thanks to the tireless efforts of the brave law enforcement officers and agents who took part in this effort,” said Marsh. “We know from experience that gun violence goes hand-in-hand with gangs and drugs. Our law enforcement officers worked incredibly hard, in the heat of a Florida summer, to take these guns and drugs out of our community. They deserve all the credit for this successful joint effort. I assure you we will not stop here and together we will continue to do what it takes to rid our streets of criminal activity.”
Dig Deeper:
I met with Sheriff Morgan, Chief Deputy Larry Aiken and Lt. Briggs the next afternoon to gain a better understanding of why Operation Anything for a Buck was initiated.
- “Last year we had spikes in some crime areas and the chief was tracking it very closely,” said Morgan. “In August of 2010, Chief Aiken began to develop a strategic plan in response to violence and gun-related crimes that we were seeing in the stats.”
Escambia County had seen a decrease in violent crimes overall of about 14 percent, according to Aiken. He added, “But we were seeing a trend of more guns and weapons in the neighborhoods.”
“The strategic plan included Operation Clean Sweep, reorganizing the community policing, creating the TAC unit and putting them in the neighborhoods where the crime was occurring,” said Aiken. “This was in response to the gun violence that we were seeing.”
- The Sheriff’s Office originally focused on gang violence, but then they expanded their approach because the crimes being committed weren’t just gang-related. “We needed a plan to go after the guns and the gun violence,” said Aiken, “It was clear that the most serious of issues was gun violence.”
“Our initial approach was to start in August 2010 a six-man TAC unit, which has grown to 14 officers,” he said. “We started in December our ‘Desk to Roads,’ in which officers here went out on the streets, and we started to see some dramatic decreases in our violent crime. But those things were only a piece of the overall plan. They were the easiest to start and reaped some benefit.”
Sheriff Morgan added, “We also worked on improving our neighborhood watch programs. We reached out to community outreach groups and local churches to have them go out with us into neighborhoods like Montclair and Diego Circle.”
Capt. Bruce Wood and Lt. Briggs suggested the Sheriff’s Office do an undercover storefront operation because they had been hugely successful in the past.
Morgan didn’t want to duplicate the mistakes of his predecessor in the fanfare around Operation Brownsville that focused on crime and code enforcement for 30 days in 2007. “The worst thing we could do is fall in the trap of Operation Brownsville, which was 30 days of hoopla and then they went off and worried about something else,” said the sheriff. “We know the key to successful crime suppression is consistency.”
- “The lesson from Brownsville,” said Aiken, “was that if you concentrate your resources in one area, you may suppress certain elements in that area but the crime moves elsewhere, like Montclair, Diego Circle or Mayfair.”
Why open up shop in the Brownsville area? Chief Aiken said the Pace Blvd location was chosen because it was easy access to several areas that had problems with gun violence. The store was stocked with items the agency had seized in arrests over the years and which would have normally been auctioned off.
- “The cost to Escambia County taxpayers was the salaries of the two officers involved in the investigations,” said Aiken. “Everything else used funds confiscated from drug deals and from the Law Enforcement Trust Fund.”
Once opened, the store had a steady stream of customers. “It was literally like Cheers,” said Morgan. “They had a regular clientele.”
When asked what the large number of guns seized by his undercover operation said about Escambia County, Sheriff Morgan hesitated a second or two before he responded.
- “I guess we’re more of a gun culture than we thought, especially on the thug side,” he said. “I think it also has to do with us being on the I-10 corridor, the most dangerous corridor in the United States. There are more rapes, murders, and drugs committed along Interstate 10 than anywhere else and that drops right into the center of our community.”
The sheriff also pointed to the mix of cultures that has an odd blend of metropolitan, urban and rural.
- “We have ignored our problems for years,” he said. “We have the third highest incarceration rate in the state, out of 67 counties. Escambia County has a lot of crime activity.”
In his conversations with youth across the county, Morgan believes that there has been a shift in attitudes, especially among teens. “There is more acceptance of the thug culture,” said Morgan. “Some are almost embracing it. Guns have become a status symbol.”
He echoed a familiar theme that has become part of talks around the community.
“We are no longer tethered to those principles-faith, family, community and nation–that make us a decent society. It’s no longer being taught in the homes, schools and churches,” said Morgan. “We in law enforcement, unfortunately, deal with the repercussions of this.”
“If an agency chooses to be proactive and does it in the appropriate manner, it will measure almost immeasurable benefits,” said Aiken. “This is resounding throughout the community and it will have a long-term effect. It’s incumbent upon us to remain consistent and make sure that we don’t ever take a step back. We have to continue to move forward.”