ATF Task Force tries to tackle violent crime in Northern Virginia

Fewer than three dozen police officers patrol the streets of Manassas Park, a small city of strip malls, quaint neighborhoods and about 15,000 people nestled between the corridors of interstates 95 and 66. Despite its size, its location has made it a supply stop in the flow of illegal immigrants, weapons and drugs into and throughout the region.

That’s why, one night in November, a team of more than 40 — made up of officers from the city’s Police Department, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and five other agencies — raided a Manassas Park apartment above a pink-painted antique shop on Route 28. They visited three other places in Manassas Park the same night, serving 11 search warrants, collecting five firearms and 1.5 kilograms of cocaine and arresting nine.

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The raids marked the end of a two-year investigation into cocaine and gun trafficking conducted by the Northern Virginia Violent Crimes Task Force, which helps police departments contain criminal operations they might not be able to fight alone — and that, officials say, could spread across the Washington area if left unchecked.

“This give us far beyond what a locality like Manassas Park can accomplish,” said Frank Jones, the city’s mayor. “It is, in my mind, one of the most effective means of law enforcement.”

Now two years old, the task force combines local agencies’ intelligence resources with federal tactics, equipment and the ability to cross jurisdictional boundaries. Officials say it has targeted violent and repeat offenders, drug-trafficking hot spots, groups active in robberies and home invasions and murder-for-hire plots.

The force has led investigations that have resulted in more than 200 state and federal convictions, officials said.

The group, made up of 26 ATF agents, detectives and officers from the Fairfax County police and Sheriff’s Office, Alexandria police, Arlington County police, the Prince William County and Stafford County sheriff’s offices, Virginia State Police and Manassas Park police, operates out of ATF offices in Falls Church. Other agencies have been invited to join but might not be able to devote full-time personnel, officials said. The task force still operates in those areas when called upon.

Where these agencies might previously have worked together on individual cases, they now try to attack dangerous groups before they become larger problems.

“This task force is designed to go after the worst of the worst,” said Ashan M. Benedict, ATF resident agent in charge, who has led the force since its inception.

It has tracked illegal guns from straw purchasers in West Virginia, North Carolina and Florida, and drugs such as ecstasy and methamphetamines as they make their way here from Canada and Mexico. Once in Virginia, officials say, contraband often continues moving.

“There is so much Mexican dope here. It goes from here, right into the District,” said Richard Marinos, ATF assistant special agent in charge, as he stood outside the antique store after the raid.