AG Jeff Sessions to visit Central Islip, discuss gang violence

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is scheduled to discuss Long Island’s gang violence problem Friday during a visit to Central Islip, officials said.

Plans for Sessions’ appearance — effectively taking on the notorious M-13 gang on its own turf — were announced one week after Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) told community members in Suffolk County that he would hold congressional hearings on the issue.

Sessions’ visit to the federal courthouse, expected between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m., will be his first stop on Long Island since he was installed as the nation’s top law enforcement officer.

Last week, at a Washington, D.C. meeting on transnational organized crime, he said “criminal organizations like MS-13 represent one of the gravest threats to American safety.”

Sessions warned: “If you are a gang member, we will find you. We will devastate your networks. We will starve your revenue sources, deplete your ranks and seize your profits. We will not concede a single block or street corner to your vicious tactics.”

The courthouse visit comes two weeks after four young men were brutally killed in a Central Islip park. Their mutilated bodies were found April 12, sparking a wave of anger and fear.

Authorities have linked those killings to MS-13, as well as the September slayings of two teenage girls from Brentwood.

With David M. Schwartz