Why some Tucson gun crimes now have added federal charges

A program between Tucson police and federal prosecutors has resulted in 54 people arrested on suspicion of gun-related crimes here facing additional federal weapons charges, authorities say.

And that could mean more time behind bars.

The pilot program began here in October 2023 as part of a nationwide initiative to combat violent crime by adding a federal weapons charge against local defendants who are not legally allowed to have guns.

“The evolving threat of firearms in America requires vigilance and cooperation,” Gary Restaino, the U.S. attorney for Arizona, said in a recent news release. “We see a growing number of defendants who possess devices used to convert a firearm to a more dangerous fully automatic mode, and we intend to seek sentencing enhancements for the possession of those dangerous devices.”

The nationwide partnerships, which have roots dating back to the Violence Reduction Network in 2014, allow law enforcement agencies on different levels to make use of “expedited, coordinated training and technical assistance to enhance local public safety strategies.”

“In Tucson, we wanted to make sure we’re focusing on certain things — anything with a switch or machine gun conversion device interests us federally because of the potential for violence that an automatic weapon can cause. So, we’ve added that as a federal priority,” Restaino told the Star.

“We’re at a 50-year low now in violent crime numbers, and in large part that’s due to partnerships like this.”

While the national partnership focuses on drug, gang and gun violence, the pilot program here also targets homicides, trafficking and criminal organizations, said Tucson Police Chief Chad Kasmar.

“Specifically, it’s focused on gun crime, and in Arizona, a lot of guns are accessible, whether that’s illegally purchased (or) stolen guns,” Kasmar said. “We have over 1,000 guns that are stolen every year out of houses and cars that are unsecured. Those make their ways into the hands of folks who shouldn’t have them.”

The pilot program brings together local jurisdictions and federal law enforcement each month and smaller teams each week to discuss cases where it would be effective to use federal gun charges to create “accountability when it comes to keeping violent offenders in jail,” said Kasmar.

“In 2021-22, unfortunately, violent crime kept us hard at work around the clock,” Pima County Attorney Laura Conover told the Star. “And so, through this partnership, we’ve been able to get law enforcement when they’re doing gun investigations separate from a violent crime, to take those to the U.S. Attorney’s Office where they can help us.”

One of the cases cited as a successful use of the program involved Jesus Antonio Najar. He was indicted by a federal grand jury on multiple firearms and narcotics charges in connection with three different local incidents. Among them: An April 19 case in which authorities say Najar was found driving a stolen vehicle. A gun modified to allow firing similar to a machine gun was found in the vehicle along with silencers without serial numbers and a pistol that also had its serial number removed, authorities say.

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Before the April incident, authorities say Najar had a “short-barrel rifle” in December 2023 that followed an October 2023 drug-related arrest in which police say Najar had a gun with a machine gun conversion device attached along with two additional firearms, according to the release.

Tucson ‘awash in firearms’

Citing “the level of weaponry accessible to young men,” Kasmar said police are seeing more weapons and a higher level of firepower in shooting incidents here. Shootings in which 50 to 100 rounds are fired are no longer unusual, he said.

For example, more than 180 rounds were fired in August in a shooting outside a midtown hookah lounge. And more than 80 bullet casings were found after a drive-by shooting at a house party in April in which Erin Jones, a UA sophomore, was killed.

“It’s frankly young men who have conflict with each other and choose to resort to gun violence to resolve it,” said Kasmar. “That’s the driver of both the street homicide as well as the hookah lounge incident. Both those cases have young individuals who have conflict with each other and choose to resolve that with violence, (while) innocent people are caught in the middle of that event.”

Conover reiterated Kasmar’s perspective on the ease of obtaining guns in Arizona. Conover said she’s come to realize that the “community is just awash in firearms” after being part of a weekly “homicide panel” for more than three years. Conover went on to call the ease of getting a gun here, even for minors, “alarming.”

“Fistfights have become gunfights,” said Conover, talking about spontaneous and repeat violence here. “When we arrest people, incarcerate them and then release them with a felony, no job and no drug treatment, they go back to what they knew. It’s just a cycle over and over again. It’s all they have.”

Lindsay Nichols, the policy director at Giffords Law Center, an organization which advocates for gun reform, said “the weakness of Arizona’s gun laws at a state level” was the reason law enforcement has difficulty in combatting this problem.

“Arizona as a state has very weak gun laws, and that makes it far too easy for those who want to sell guns to people who shouldn’t have them, to do so with impunity,” said Nichols. So, there are background check loopholes, loopholes regarding domestic violence (and) no Red Flag law. There’s no way for a law enforcement officer to seek to temporarily remove guns from someone they know is making threats or is dangerous.”

According to a 2024 Center for American Progress report on gun violence, the rate of people being victimized by gun crimes has reduced by 14.7% in 300 of the most populous cities in 2024 in comparison to 2023. However, Nichols said gun violence rates are at “unacceptably high levels” and “too many communities are suffering” from it, making it a problem which needs to be addressed.

Through the ATF, an important resource being used by the TPD for repeat gun and violent crime is the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN). It uses shell casings from crime scenes to track specific weapons and the people who possess them.

“In a world where we’re still moving forward as public safety to rebuild trust with communities and do investigations without bias, this is a tool that takes race, gender (and) sexuality out of the equation,” said Kasmar.

“It’s a scientific piece of equipment that tells us, ‘This shell casing is fired by the same gun that was used two weeks ago at another location.’”