New leader of Boston ATF focusing on illegal guns

BOSTON (AP) — The new leader of the Boston office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives wants to focus on taking illegal guns off the streets to make neighborhoods safer.

Daniel Kumor, a career ATF special agent, started his job as the special agent in charge of the Boston office last month.

Kumor said he regularly attends community meetings and hears personal stories about how gun violence affects families.

“When you hear these stories from people who are the victims of gun crime, I think it magnifies the importance of focusing on firearms trafficking because that directly leads to violent gun crime, which impacts our neighborhoods and communities,” he said.

Kumor said the ATF will focus on areas with the highest concentration of illegal guns, including Boston, Springfield, New Bedford and Lynn.

This is not Kumor’s first stint in Boston. He was named assistant special agent in charge of the Boston office in 2002, where he oversaw enforcement operations in the Boston area, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. He also returned to Boston in April to help in the investigation of the Boston Marathon bombings.

In 2009, he was appointed as the chief of the ATF’s Office of International Affairs and oversaw ATF operations in offices in Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, and Europe.

Kumor, 52, began his career with ATF in 1988 as a special agent in New York, where he worked on violent crime investigations involving street gangs, gun trafficking, racketeering and organized crime. He later worked as the supervisory special agent in Seattle and chief of ATF’S Special Operations Training Branch.

Before joining ATF, Kumor worked was a deputy U.S. Marshal in Newark, N.J., and a police officer in Philadelphia.