A new unit within the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) is helping to tackle violent crime. 

On Monday, the BCA introduced The Violent Crime Reduction Unit (VCRU), which the bureau launched at the beginning of the year.

The new unit stemmed from a similar BCA initiative — the Violent Crime Reduction Support Initiative (VCRSI) — that began in April 2022.

The initiative was a partnership to help local jurisdictions that were seeing increased violent crimes and also dealing with staffing shortages.

In these circumstances, the BCA stepped in to provide strategic resources, including agents, criminal intelligence analysts, and forensic scientists.

From April 2022 through December 2023 the VCRSI and local partners made 1,384 arrests and confiscated:

• 653 firearms
• 145,070 fentanyl pills
• 220 pounds of meth
• Large quantities of other drugs, including cocaine, heroin and MDMA

The BCA says the initiative was working, and using funding passed by state lawmakers, the BCA was able to create the full unit and continue this violent crime reduction work.

The unit will have 14 BCA agents, one firearms detection K-9, two criminal intelligence analysts, two crime victim/witness coordinators and 11 task force officers from a dozen local partner agencies.

The agency says that a new, centralized location is being outfitted in Maplewood. 

BCA Superintendent Drew Evans says they will be adding a criminal intelligence analyst to their laboratory for the first time to strategically identify criminals in the communities. 

“We have also added scientists as part of this initiative for our violent crime efforts, in particular in our firearms laboratory and our DNA laboratory to provide answers more quickly to the individuals that are assigned to this unit, and to our partners across the entire state. We’re working on these cases already,” Evans said. 

So far in 2024, the new unit has arrested 112 wanted criminals and confiscated:

• 66 firearms
• 2,650 fentanyl pills
• 9.2 pounds of meth

“We know that crime does not respect jurisdictional boundaries. That’s why it’s so important we work with our partners in this holistic approach to reducing violent crime. We can follow the criminals, guns and drugs wherever they go and pull them off the street before they can be used in a crime or hurt someone,” Evans said. “We are proud to stand up this new unit and have them get to work on making Minnesota safer.”

“We want the people out there, the repeat offenders, the people who don’t care who they hurt, who gets caught in the crossfire, or where their drugs end up to know that they are the ones we are targeting, that we’re going to come after them,” said BCA Special Agent Jake May.

Evans says the unit has ongoing state funding of about $12 million plus a one-time appropriation of $15 million from the Legislature last year to fund officers, agents and detectives.

Metro-area departments with deputies assigned to the VCRU include the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office and Anoka County Sheriff’s Office and officers from police departments in Fridley, St. Louis Park, Columbia Heights, Crystal, Bloomington, Brooklyn Park, Maplewood, North St. Paul, Roseville and Robbinsdale.

“[Joining] the state-led initiative was a no-brainer for us,” Inspector Elliot Faust, with the Brooklyn Park Police Department, said. “The beauty of it is everybody pitches in a little bit, and all those little bits turn together and become a lot.”

Coming off the deadliest year ever for the city, with nine homicides in 2023, Faust says they’re working and thinking ‘outside the box’ to make improvements.

“Given the issues that have happened in our community, we will take advantage of every opportunity that we can to impact violent crime,” Faust said.