New Manhattan U.S. Attorney Vows Community, Civil Rights Focus

(Bloomberg) -- Damian Williams, the newly installed top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, pledged to ramp up prosecutions of gun violence, white-collar crime and launch a new unit dedicated to criminal prosecution of civil rights violations. 

“When it comes to protecting the people of this district, it’s an all-hands on deck moment,” he said at a public swearing-in ceremony in Harlem on Friday.

Williams, the first Black person to be named Manhattan U.S. attorney, rose through the office’s ranks and made his name as a securities fraud prosecutor, winning convictions and extracting guilty pleas from hedge fund managers and even a U.S. congressman for insider trading. 

But while he said he would bring a renewed focus on financial market corruption to the office – which declined precipitously during the Trump administration -- much of the agenda Williams unveiled in his speech at the Harlem Armory, a fitness and athletics center for community youths, focused on issues of more critical concern to the lives of New Yorkers.  

Williams was privately sworn in as U.S. attorney in October, but the event Friday was a public ceremony attended by New York Senator Charles Schumer, who proposed him for the position, and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, for whom he served as a law clerk. 

Symbolic Setting

The Armory where William gave his speech was rich with symbolism. It once served as headquarters of the Harlem Hellfighters, an all-black U.S. Army regiment whose volunteers were transferred to French command in World War I to avoid having them serve alongside White American soldiers. The regiment’s colonel, a White lawyer named William Hayward, later became Southern District U.S. Attorney and hired a veteran of the regiment as the office’s first Black prosecutor.  

Williams’s planned unit targeting civil rights violations could put more teeth behind prosecutions of law enforcement officers who use excessive force against people of color. Historically, federal enforcement of civil rights in such instances has leaned towards lawsuits that place police departments under consent decree to improve use-of-force practices. 

He also said he would increase emphasis on enforcing cases related to gun violence, noting a wave of shootings in New York that have escalated in recent years. He said the victims in these cases disproportionately come from “underserved populations” in the district, and he pledged to file cases that attack the “primary drivers of violent crime.” 

Williams pointed out that his office, though based in Manhattan, also has jurisdiction over the Bronx, Westchester, Rockland and Putnam Counties, He vowed to revitalize ties to communities the office serves and directly engage with community organizations. 

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