[A musical track—prominently featuring bass, percussion, and synthesizer and with an investigative mood—begins.]

Narrator: This summer, the FBI raised the stakes in our quest to crush violent crime through Operation Summer Heat. This nationwide initiative aimed to get the worst of the worst violent offenders off American streets and to seize illegal weapons and drugs flowing through our communities, with the ultimate goal of restoring safety to neighborhoods across the United States.

On this episode of our podcast, Darren Cox—a former deputy assistant director of the Bureau’s Criminal Investigative Division who now leads the Bureau’s Washington Field Office—will share the story behind Summer Heat, which stretched across 55 field offices and enlisted assistance from countless federal, state, local, and community partners.

Last, but not least, FBI Director Kash Patel will speak to the significance of this landmark operation.

This episode of our show is part of "Your FBI: Crushing Violent Crime," a campaign highlighting the people, partners, and mission of Your FBI and our ongoing work to dismantle violent crime and keep our communities safe.

This is Inside the FBI.

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Assistant Director in Charge (ADIC) Darren Cox: Operation Summer Heat is the FBI's initiative to crush violent crime across the country and to basically make our neighborhoods safer.

We've partnered with our state, local, and federal partners across the United States to work violent crime, to reduce violent crime rates, target the most violent offenders—whether they're narcotics traffickers, gang members, or just violent felons.

We're targeting folks that are in gangs, that are in cartels, foreign terrorist organizations, and we basically have a concentrated effort to target them and get rid of the worst-of-the-worst offenders to make our neighborhoods and streets safer.

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ADIC Cox: A lot of these efforts on the local level, out of our field offices, were led by our task forces.

Working through those task forces—again, working with the state and locals—we develop an intelligence plan, a strategy, and we would utilize their experience with ours to identify the most violent gangs, the most violent gang members, the individuals that are causing the highest amount of violent crime.

And we will specifically (1) either work cases to target them and proactively develop a strategy to arrest them and take them off the streets, or (2) if they've been arrested on charges and there's charges that could be adopted from the state level and moved onto the federal level, then we would work with them to get those cases federally prosecuted, which again, takes people off the street.

So, in a lot of situations, we see repeat offenders that are out on the street committing multiple crimes—whether it's armed robberies, whether it's shootings, in some cases, you know, even auto theft. But they are repeat offenders. And so, if we can put a federal investigation on them and charge them federally—especially in states that have laws that may allow them back out—then we're able to take them off the street. And that quickly reduces the repetitive nature of that violent crime.

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ADIC Cox: The operation started on June the 24th and involved all 55 field offices, multiple cities within those field offices.

This really was a whole-of-government approach that anybody that wanted to partner with the FBI and in the law enforcement realm, we utilize their expertise: FBI special agents, intel[ligence] analysts, professional staff, our laboratory employees, and also a large number of task force officers, along with our partners in our other federal agencies, our state and local police officers.

And it wouldn't be possible without the prosecutors from the Department of Justice and, also, state and local prosecutors. Anybody that wanted to crush violent crime to make neighborhoods safer, we partnered with them.

We've tried to make sure that we provide the resources. We're not monopolizing the cases. They're not FBI cases; they're all of our cases. And when we work this whole-of-government approach, there's enough credit to go around for everybody. But it's really about the community, and that's who deserves the credit and that's who deserves the safe neighborhoods. And that's why we've really done it—not for the credit, but to make things better.

And we also partnered with members of the community. It's important for people to know that the FBI agents and employees are members of the community, and it makes their community safer, but it's our community, too. And so, we partnered with a number of community groups. Everybody that wanted to have a safer neighborhood is who we've worked with.

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ADIC Cox: Success for us is not just about the arrests. While they are important, it's not just about the drugs seized, but it's also about the stories that we hear from people.

We have heard stories that people feel safer in their neighborhoods.

They can now go out to dinner. They can take their kids to the playground. They can feel safe walking up and down the street.

We also look at statistical accomplishments as far as the crime statistics, and they show positive results. Obviously, the large number of arrests that we've made. But we really do look at it from an understanding of what the community feels. Do they feel safer?

And another way that we know that it's safer is because we've had more communities come and ask us, “Can you do this in our state? Can you do this in our city?” And we've expended those resources. We've went there and again, we see the success and we hear it from talking to people on the streets.

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Narrator: Now, a word from Director Patel.

FBI Director Kash Patel: Operation Summer Heat wasn't just a seasonal sprint.

Its results stand as concrete proof of what happens when you let good cops be cops and when we dedicate the full force of our expertise, capabilities, authorities, and strategic partnerships to crushing violent crime in our communities.

And it's only the beginning. Your FBI won't let up in this fight.

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Narrator: Protecting American communities is also personally significant for FBI personnel. Let’s listen to Darren Cox again as he discusses that meaning, in his own words.

ADIC Cox: I'm Darren Cox. I'm a deputy assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Investigative Division.

[High-energy music begins.]

I oversee the criminal investigative programs for the entire FBI. And those are investigations that span across the world. They concentrate on transnational organized crime, which is narcotics trafficking; cartels, which deal in human trafficking; gun smuggling.

During the early part of my career, I had the opportunity to be on a Safe Streets Task Force in Phoenix. We had amazing partnerships with so many agencies out there.There were so many large-scale investigations that we all collectively worked together. And some of those investigations have had impact 10 or 15 years later, because they really just demolished the leadership of those criminal organizations. It was rewarding to even see some of the criminals that we arrested to then come back out of the prison system and change their lifestyle.

It's a calling to go in law enforcement. That's one of the things for me and the FBI. We really do see our self-reflection in the community, and I really do want to keep the streets safer for people like my family and your family.

I'm Darren Cox, and I'm part of your FBI.

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Narrator: You can visit fbi.gov/news to discover additional stories, podcasts, videos, and blog posts about the Bureau's efforts to combat violent crime and protect the American people.

This has been another production of Inside the FBI.

You can follow us on your favorite podcast player, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also listen to our show via the myFBI Dashboard app. Learn more at fbi.gov/dashboardapp.

To subscribe to email alerts to learn more about new episodes, visit fbi.gov/podcasts.

On behalf of the FBI's Office of Public Affairs, thanks for tuning in.

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