ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: Seattle PI
07March2011 5:00amEST
GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: CLEVELAND (AP) -- A nationwide program that targets fugitives accused of nonviolent crimes and allows them to safely surrender at churches has been eliminated by the U.S. Marshals Service because it didn't fit the service's mission of catching violent fugitives, a spokesman said.
More than 34,000 people in 20 cities have turned themselves in through Fugitive Safe Surrender, which got its start in Cleveland in 2005 in response to the killing of a police officer by a fugitive during a traffic stop.
Spokesman Jeff Carter told The Plain Dealer of Cleveland for Sunday's editions that the program cost $250,000 annually. Funding was dropped this year after a review of programs aimed at reducing violent crime.
"While Fugitive Safe Surrender's goals were laudable, the agency could not sustain this unfunded initiative," Carter said.
The program paired the marshals with other law enforcement agents and churches. It set a record in Cleveland in September when more than 7,400 fugitives surrendered in a four-day event, topping the roughly 6,600 who had turned themselves in at a Detroit church hosting the program in a 2008. (read full report)