DA’s office warns its gang violence investigation unit could shutter if City Council doesn’t provide recurring funds
With additional city funds, law enforcement is at risk of losing essential digital investigative tools as soon as this year, the district attorney's office says.
The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office on Monday warned that its specialized unit tasked with investigating gang violence is at risk of losing access to the digital tools that police and prosecutors rely on to solve homicides if City Council doesn’t provide additional funding.
The Gun Violence Task Force, a joint city-state unit within the DA’s office, has investigated and prosecuted dozens of the city’s most violent gang members in recent years.
But its funding is running out, said Assistant District Attorney William Fritze.
The unit receives about $1.6 million a year in state funds, he said, in part because state law caps the DA’s office share at 20% of the $8 million the state allocates to Philadelphia for joint task forces — directing the bulk of that money to the state attorney general’s office instead.
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For the last few years, Fritze said, the unit has papered over funding gaps with a one-time $20 million federal grant it received in 2022.
But those funds are gone, he said, and without additional money from the city, the task force is at risk of losing access to critical forensic investigative tools used by law enforcement as soon as this year.
“The unit shuts down,” Fritze told Council members during a lengthy budget hearing Monday. “We’re asking for $1.6 million to keep the lights on and keep the software going.”
The appeal comes as District Attorney Larry Krasner requests about $5.3 million in additional funding that would bring the office’s budget to about $65 million. Mayor Cherelle L. Parker has proposed a $60 million budget for the office — a reduction of about $340,000 from last year.
Among Krasner’s other requests: funds to create a unit dedicated to prosecuting repeat domestic violence offenders and crimes against the elderly; evidence storage systems; and ongoing funds for victim support and relocation services.
» READ MORE: Philly detectives are solving homicides at the highest rate in 40 years as violence plummets and tech improves
Several Council members, though, seemed particularly interested in issues facing the task force, which has made headlines in recent months for charging 19 people connected with the West Philadelphia gang the Young Bag Chasers and its rivals.
Fritze said that the $20 million grant the task force received in 2022 allowed it to purchase more than a dozen cell phone extraction devices — tools that help investigators crack open suspects’ phones and pull text messages and other evidence — for the task force and homicide unit within the Philadelphia Police Department.
It also bankrolled the software subscriptions that underpin much of the city’s investigative infrastructure: cell tower location mapping, license plate readers, and other tools that detectives across the city use to trace suspects in violent crimes.
The subscriptions to those software systems will begin expiring within the next year, Fritze said.
Those digital tools have become essential to investigations, particularly for homicide detectives, and have played a central role in the police department’s ability to solve more killings and shootings in recent years. Last year, the homicide clearance rate was about 82%, the highest since 1984, and the clearance of nonfatal shootings reached nearly 40%.
