Pa. attorney general launches gun task force in Allegheny County

Citing the need to reduce gun violence, the Pennsylvania attorney general and Allegheny County district attorney on Thursday announced the formation of a gun task force.

Funded by $1.5 million from the state legislature, the task force will be a collaborative effort among local and state law enforcement to combat gun trafficking and illegal straw purchases.

Attorney General Michelle Henry, speaking on the Grand Staircase of the Allegheny County Courthouse on Thursday afternoon, said it will be an expansion of work already underway and mirror a similar program in Philadelphia.

“It’s going to multiply the impact that we are able to have when it comes to investigating and prosecuting gun-related crime,” she said.

The funding will go to hire seven agents, one attorney, an analyst and one administrative assistant. All of the new personnel will be situated within the attorney general’ s office.

Henry, standing in front of a number of local police chiefs and law enforcement officers on the stairs, focused most of her comments on straw purchases of firearms, a process by which a person who is legally allowed to buy a gun, does so, and then gives or sells it to a person prohibited from owning one.

“They end up at crime scenes. They end up in shootings. They end up where individuals are killed,” she said. “We’re seeing that over and over again. I’m here to tell you there’s a consequence.”

Under Pennsylvania law, Henry said, there is a mandatory minimum prison term of five years for that charge. That mandatory penalty, though, according to Pennsylvania statute, only applies for a second or subsequent violation.

Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr., who introduced Henry, said that law enforcement in the region removes three tons of firearms off the street every year.

He cited the death last year of Brackenridge police Chief Justin McIntire as an example of how dangerous those who deal in illegal firearms can be.

The man who killed McIntire, Aaron Swan Jr., was in the Allegheny Valley that day with plans to sell firearms illegally, Zappala said.

Swan was killed by Pittsburgh police later that night.

“She wants to do a better job of taking these guns out before these illegal weapons are used in the commission of a crime,” Zappala said of Henry.

She cited an investigation at the Monroeville gun show in 2021. Over one week, Henry said, law enforcement recovered 19 guns and arrested seven people for straw purchases.

During that investigation, officers also recovered 15 guns from the home of a man forbidden from having them.

“Just one individual dealing with the illegal firearms makes our community less safe,” Henry said. “It’s time for us to expand and work together in a more strategic way.”