County Attorney's Office Receives Gun Violence Grant

ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, MD -- Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and the Governor's Office of Crime Control and Prevention of Maryland has awarded Anne Arundel County State's Attorney Anne Colt Leitess a gun violence reduction grant worth $100,000 earmarked to support the attorney's office's gun violence reduction program. The funding will be available July 11, 2019.

Leitess explained that the program would target repeat offenders charged with the illegal use or possession of firearms and address the needs of the citizens of Anne Arundel County through a coordinated community response. The program also will develop prosecution strategies focused on identifying at-risk youth and minor offenders for an early intervention approach to prevent them from re-offending.

The grant will provide a new prosecutor to work with the prosecution team and the Annapolis City and Anne Arundel County Police Departments to ensure that gun offenders are held accountable, Leitess said in a statement. In the past year, the Anne Arundel County State's Attorney's Office prosecuted cases where guns were used in eight murders and 17 attempted murders.

"As the Anne Arundel County community continues to grow, unfortunately, so has the number of crimes that have been committed involving the use of guns," Leitess said in a statement. "With the gun violence reduction grant, the state's attorney's office will be able to provide a more thorough and targeted focus on gun violence prevention throughout the county as a whole and within those communities that have been immediately affected by gun violence. I hope to identify those individuals who are starting down the path toward violent crime and disrupt their trajectory through early intervention before it is too late."