Timothy A. Garrison, 42, is the newest federal law enforcer in the western half of Missouri, after the U.S. Senate in April confirmed him as the United States attorney for Western Missouri.
"The persistent problem that we're having right now is an increase in violent crime and an increase in drug trafficking," Garrison told reporters last week, during an informal meeting where he introduced himself and outlined some of the issues federal prosecutors face.
"And a subset of that, everybody's familiar with the opioid crisis."
Although he wouldn't comment on specifics, Garrison's office last week filed charges against three Indiana men who reportedly used a gun stolen in Indiana to rob the Walgreen's store, 2002 Missouri Blvd., of more than $9,000 worth of prescription drugs.
Garrison noted the United States "lost over 58,000 service members to direct combat" during the 20 years America had troops fighting in Vietnam. But drug overdoses alone claimed more than 60,000 lives each year in 2016 and 2017, he said.
And that "does not include drug-related violence or the number of children abused and neglected by drug-addicted parents."
Garrison said the "vast majority of the break-ins and home invasions and things of that nature," are to find things that can be pawned so there's money available for buying drugs.
Fighting drugs long has been more difficult in Missouri than in some other states, he said, because the state "used to be one of the - if not the - leaders in home-grown meth production."
But meth production in Missouri began dropping when lawmakers made it more difficult to buy pseudoephedrine, one of the key ingredients used for making the drug.
Instead, Garrison noted, "Mexican meth came across the border to fill the demand with a vengeance. It came in greater quantity and in much higher purity- we almost never see anything below 90 percent purity now."
And the norm now is 95-100 percent purity, he said.
"And the customers know the difference," he said. "When that quality starts to go down, they don't want it."
Garrison said his staff, and other U.S. attorneys around the country, are more likely to get involved in charging and prosecuting crimes when larger quantities of drugs are involved - because that quantity "may trigger a mandatory-minimum sentence" that often isn't available at the state level.
"At the federal level," he explained, "we're trying to dismantle organizations. We're going after significant interstate and international drug traffickers."
Drug-related conspiracies also are a focus.
"But it's always a dialogue" between federal and state prosecutors, he said, about which agency will take a case to court.
"In the drug context, we will almost always have, from the federal side, the more substantial prison sentence that can be applied," he said.
And federal sentences don't include early release or parole the way most state sentences have.
Missouri also has more violence than some states, Garrison said.
"One of the things that really catches people off-guard a lot is just how significant violent crime is relative to the national crime rate here in Missouri," he said. "According to FBI crime statistics - based on reporting for cities with populations over 100,000 - we have three of the Top 15 most violent cities, on a per capita basis, inside the state of Missouri in Kansas City, St. Louis and Springfield."
Missouri is one of the Top 10 states for murder rate.
"The homicide rate in Chicago is the one that gets all the attention because the numbers are so great," Garrison said. "Kansas City actually has a higher rate on a per capita basis."
And nearby, Memphis and Little Rock also are in that Top 15 most-violent list.
And the reasons vary from city to city, he said.
"We have this 'culture of insult' which is exacerbated by social media," Garrison explained, "in which one person receives an insult and, the next time they see each other, somebody's going to get shot."
He said some of the violence that state and federal prosecutors deal with comes from drug transactions gone bad, as well as some people's inability to handle conflict with others.
There are 93 federal prosecutor's offices around the country.
Garrison is based in Kansas City but also supervises offices in Jefferson City and Springfield - where he grew up and where he worked as an assistant U.S. attorney until this year's promotion to the district's top spot.
His office stays in touch with other federal prosecutors in the region - especially in the neighboring states - and with the local prosecutors and law enforcement officers in the state's western half.
Once law officers finish an investigation, he said, "We'll sit down and see what statutes might apply" for a prosecution.
At the federal level, Garrison said, "The phrase that we're directed to look for is, 'What is the most serious, readily provable offense?'"
The federal and state officials then will compare which agency has the stronger law on the offense or which might have the stronger punishment for a conviction of that law.
As an example, he noted a 2016 "drug-related murder in Webster County," with four adults and one juvenile involved in a drug deal that began in Springfield and ended with the killing of one of the conspirators in the deal.
Ultimately, the U.S. attorney's office handled the five adults, while the county retained the case involving the juvenile.
"I've never had any difficulty working with our state counterparts," Garrison said.
He declined to talk about any involvement his office might have in this month's sinking of a Duck Boat on Branson's Table Rock Lake - which still is under investigation.
Nor would he discuss the rumors his office might be looking at issues involving now-former Gov. Eric Greitens.
Public corruption is an area federal attorneys study, he said.
"It's not the epidemics that we're facing with violent crime and drug trafficking," he said. "Anytime you have fraudulent activity - even if it's not from a public official - that is troubling.
"I think that is exacerbated when a person holds and abuses a position of public trust. It's a particular injurious act when they abuse that position."
Such a case would rank high on the list of priorities when his office is given evidence showing such corruption, Garrison said, and are handled on a case-by-case basis, rather than being part of a targeted effort like the drug trafficking and violence cases.
Other areas competing for prosecutors' attention are wire fraud, mortgage fraud and child pornography, among others.
Garrison is an eighth-generation Missourian, who graduated from Springfield's Hillcrest High School, then earned his bachelor's degree at what is now Drury University.
He earned a master's degree in public administration and his law degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
And then he joined the Marines, through the Officer Candidate School.
After his basic training, Garrison served in the judge advocate service at Camp Pendleton in southern California.
He still serves in the Marine Corps Reserves.
Garrison began as a special U.S. attorney in Springfield about 11 years ago and ultimately was hired as a regular assistant U.S. attorney - a position he held until January when U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions appointed him as the interim U.S. attorney until President Donald Trump nominated him for the top job and the U.S. Senate confirmed his appointment.
He no longer prosecutes cases, he said.
"Now I manage an 80-lawyer law firm," he explained. "I view my job as making sure we have the relationships and resources for my prosecutors and civilian attorneys to do their jobs."
He credits Sessions and Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein with making more money available for the U.S. attorneys' offices around the country so they can hire more assistants to handle criminal cases.
"They have really slimmed down the number of personnel within what we call 'Main Justice' - which is the Department of Justice in D.C. - and curtailed their own budget to push out resources to the United States attorneys' offices," Garrison said. "They've made good on that pledge by pushing out hundreds of new AUSA positions to tackle, specifically, the violent crime problem that we've got right now."