COURT NEWS UPDATE

By DEBRA HAIGHT
BCR Correspondent
NILES – Federal officials came to Niles last week to announce charges against a Niles man which they hope will curb violence in Niles and the rest of Southwest Michigan.
U.S. Attorney Mark Totten, FBI Acting Special Agent Devin Kowalski, Berrien County Sheriff Paul Bailey and Niles Interim Public Safety Director Mike Dawson were among those announcing the arrest of 19 year old Lawrence Edward Slaughter II on federal gun charges at a Sept. 5 press conference at the Niles Law Enforcement Complex.

A federal grand jury indicted Slaughter in late August on charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm and possession of a machine gun which carry maximum penalties of 15 years in prison and 10 years in prison respectively. He was to be transferred to federal custody ahead of a Sept. 11 arraignment in Grand Rapids.
Totten said that anyone who uses a Glock switch or similar device to convert guns into machine guns can expect to be held accountable not only with state but also federal charges. “It’s no surprise that federal sentencings carry much more stringent penalties,” he said.
He said guns with these conversion devices can fire over 1,000 rounds a minute and are an emerging threat to communities. Similar arrests were made late last year of several Benton Harbor residents.
While officials talked about the gun violence incidents and homicides occurring in the city in 2022, they did not link Slaughter directly to those crimes. Police have said those shootings near the city’s downtown involved revenge and retaliation among rival groups.
Media reports have implicated a Cass County teen accused in the murders of two women on the north side of South Bend in the Niles homicides, but he has not yet been arrested in connection with the murders that took place late last summer in Niles.
Dawson did say that Niles experienced a major increase in crime in 2022 with four separate shooting incidents and the deaths of five people. “We’ve tracked down numerous subjects in possession of illegal firearms who are believed to be involved in these incidents,” he said.
“We feel we have been able to prevent additional crimes to take place and hopefully make Niles a much safer community,” he added.
“Last year, the city experienced homicides resulting in five deaths and that’s not something we take casually,” Totten said. “It appears that several resulted from group related violence in an escalating cycle of revenge. Niles is not a big place, it’s a city of 12,000, and the devastation that this kind of violence can leave behind cannot be underestimated.”
Totten said the overall message he wants people to get from the Slaughter arrest and the Tuesday press conference is that federal officials are joining hands with local, county and state partners to prosecute those who put communities at risk. “Whether you live in a big city or a small town, we’re here to protect you,” he said.