Attorney General Merrick B. Garland Delivers Remarks at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Arkansas

Remarks as Delivered

Good morning. Thank you, Jonathan, for that warm welcome.

I am very happy to be here in Arkansas.

In just a few moments, U.S. Attorney Ross and I will meet with our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners about our shared work to protect communities here in Little Rock and across the district.

I am grateful to have the chance to thank our law enforcement partners, in person, for the difficult and often dangerous work they do every single day.

I am also grateful to have the chance to recognize the public servants of this office for their extraordinary work.

This U.S. Attorney’s Office is the face of the Justice Department here in the Eastern District of Arkansas. When people in this District look to see what the Justice Department stands for, they look to this U.S. Attorney’s Office.

I have been consistently impressed not only with the work you do, but with the way you do that work.

Those efforts, in addition to the efforts of our state and local law enforcement partners, are making a difference.

Three- and-a-half years ago, the Justice Department launched an ambitious strategy to combat violent crime. That strategy is rooted in exactly the kinds of partnerships that are represented in this room. While we know that progress in too many places is still uneven — and there is no acceptable level of violent crime — today we are seeing results.

Just earlier this week, the FBI released a report showing an 11.6% drop in homicides last year and one of the lowest violent crime rates in 50 years nationwide.

And recent data indicates this trend is continuing. Earlier this month, the Justice Department’s Violent Crime Reduction Steering Committee announced new data from across 88 cities that indicates that violent crime has continued to decline considerably in 2024. That included a further 16.9% drop in murders.

But we know we have so much more work to do, here in Arkansas, and across the country.

That is why this office, and our entire Department, are working in partnership with state and local law enforcement to arrest violent felons, seize and trace guns used in crimes, disrupt violent drug traffickers, and prosecute the individuals and gangs who are responsible for the most violence.

For this office, that meant working with the DEA, the FBI, and the North Little Rock Police Department to secure a 25-year prison sentence last month for a Little Rock man for distributing fentanyl resulting in someone’s death.

Also last month, this office worked with DEA, the Arkansas State Police, the Saline County Sheriff’s Office, and the Little Rock Police Department to secure a 15-year prison sentence of a defendant on fentanyl and firearms charges.

In July, this office, together with the U.S. Marshals Service and U.S. Postal Inspection Service, secured the guilty plea of a man who threatened to assault and murder a United States judge and a federal law enforcement officer.

Earlier this spring, this office worked with DEA, FBI, the second Judicial District Drug Task Force and seven other state and local partners as part of a large-scale enforcement action to charge and arrest 15 people on drug, money laundering, and firearm offenses related to the distribution of methamphetamine in Northeast Arkansas.

In March, this office worked with the DEA, ATF, the Pine Bluff Police Department, and the Little Rock Police Department to secure a 30-year prison sentence for a man with a lengthy criminal record of domestic violence who was found guilty of being a felon in possession of ammunition. In October of last year, the defendant shot his former girlfriend and then shot into an apartment where the victim and her young son were hiding.

And in January, this office worked with ATF to secure a 20-year prison sentence against a man who had assaulted a victim after she ended their relationship. The defendant then set fire to her business after she changed the locks. During the sentencing, the victim told the Court how hard she worked to build her business as a single mother and spoke about the impact of the defendant’s violence against her.

In addition to using our investigative and prosecutorial resources to protect communities in this district, we are also committed to using our grantmaking capabilities to invest in public safety.

For example, today, the Justice Department is awarding more than a million dollars in funding to the state under the DNA Capacity Enhancement and Backlog Reduction Program, to enhance laboratories’ capacity to process DNA samples.

And this week, we awarded more than $4 million to Arkansas under the National Criminal History Improvement Program, which provides funding to states and localities to improve the quality, timeliness, and immediate accessibility of criminal history records and related information.

Today’s grants are part of the more than $26 million that the Department is awarding to organizations and government agencies in Arkansas this month to support law enforcement activities and community initiatives.

These funds will, among other things, help law enforcement agencies in Arkansas hire more officers, help to prevent and combat violent crime and drug trafficking, and improve services for survivors of domestic and dating violence, sexual assault, stalking, and other crimes.

We remain committed to providing our law enforcement and community partners with the resources they need to protect people across this District.

The examples I have shared today are just a snapshot of the work this office is doing every day to protect communities in the Eastern District of Arkansas, and to fulfill the Justice Department’s mission to keep our country safe, to protect civil rights, and to uphold the rule of law.

I am very proud of the public servants who make up this office. And I am equally proud of the relationships they have nurtured with the people and the agencies around this table, who are the Justice Department’s indispensable partners.

I look forward to our meeting. Thank you.