Fort Duchesne resident Jarvis Charlie Cuch, a felon who admitted fleeing from Bureau of Indian Affairs police officers and firing a semi-automatic pistol at them during a car chase, is slated to be sentenced in U.S. District Court later this month to a 12-year prison sentence.
Bret Michael Edmunds, a Salt Lake City man who was charged with seven bank robberies, recently began serving a term of more than nine years behind bars. And Jose Rodriguez, who was picked up on drug trafficking and firearm charges in Operation Rio Grande, an operation to reduce lawlessness near a downtown Salt Lake City homeless shelter, could be incarcerated for decades if convicted.
U.S. Attorney for Utah John Huber said Thursday that the cases are part of the strategic approach law enforcement agencies and task forces are taking to reduce violent crime in the state.
“You take out a felon with a gun who’s sitting in your neighborhood and now they’re going to go to federal prison,” Huber said. “That’s going to make the neighborhood safer.”
Huber said his office is working with state, local and tribal agencies to target the most violent offenders in a community. Collaboration among law enforcement agencies help reduce crime without duplicating efforts, he said.
The Vernal police officers and the Uintah County Sheriff’s Office assisted the BIA in catching Cuch and the FBI investigated the case. In the Edmunds case, an FBI task force, which includes officers from the Salt Lake City and Unified police departments, investigated and local police agencies responded to the robberies. Salt Lake City police officers are the investigators in the Rodriguez case.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office on Thursday released figures on its violence reduction efforts last year. In 2017, indictments were returned in:
• 144 cases involving members or associates of gangs.
• 204 Project Safe Neighborhoods cases, the majority targeting felons with guns. The project is a nationwide initiative designed to reduce gun violence in communities around the country.
• 41 child exploitation cases.
• 41 robbery cases, including 29 bank robbery cases.
• 300 cases charging defendants with illegal re-entry into the country.
Huber said the immigration cases target criminals who enter the United States illegally and get deported, then come back and commit crimes such as drug trafficking.
“I’m not talking about people trying to earn a living and raise a family,” he said. “We do not go after people who come here and want to otherwise abide by our rules.”
He included the child pornography and exploitation category in the list, Huber said, because “I don’t know what’s more violent than stripping away innocence from a child. That’s about as violent as an act that you can do.”
Huber said the violent crime rate will never drop to zero but can be reduced.
“Our strategy is to use the laws that Congress gives us and to use them aggressively and strategically,” he said.