HICKORY, N.C. — A mass shooting was the match that ignited the flame to start a new partnership between investigators in Catawba County and the FBI.
Channel 9 is learning they’ll be focusing not only on violent crimes, but also gangs, armed robberies, and drug trafficking.
The district attorney says he’s assigned a prosecutor to handle the cases.
The Catawba Valley Violent Crime Task Force was started in part because of a mass shooting along Walnut Acres Drive. Investigators say 80 rounds were fired at a pool party last summer, injuring 10 and leaving one person dead.
Deputies say the people involved had gang affiliations.
“We want to get the worst of the worst off the streets,” said Catawba County Sheriff Don Brown. “These people who keep committing crimes of recidivism. And we are identifying these folks and we’re making lists of these folks and we’re going to target them.”
The FBI assisted with the investigation along Walnut Acres Drive. Now they will be working with deputies and police from Hickory, along with several other agencies in the county, along with the SBI and ATF in hopes of “disrupting violent crimes” before they happen.
“We couldn’t go down there,” said John Stephens who lives along Walnut Acres Drive. He saw the huge response by law enforcement last June. He supports the new approach.
“Anything done in the future that could be proactive or preventative understanding not working after the fact but before the fact would be very beneficial,” Stephens said.
District Attorney Scott Reilly says many of the people involved in violent crimes in the area are repeat offenders. His goal is to get those arrest into court as quickly as possible and he’s appointed a special prosecutor to focus on these cases.
“To get them off the street so they are no longer wreaking havoc and committing crime in Catawba County,” said Reilly.
The FBI says the U.S. Attorney’s office in western North Carolina will also work with local prosecutors to see whether or not some of these cases should be tried federally.
VIDEO: Two Catawba County mass shooting suspects given $1M bonds; others held without bond
This browser does not support the video element.