The top agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in New York City takes gun violence personally – his mom was shot to death by a deranged boyfriend who also shot him when he was 15.
John DeVito, who grew up in low-income housing in Alabama, said he can still smell the gunpowder when he thinks about his mom’s terrible demise.
“She didn’t deserve that,” said DeVito, who was shot three times in the chest when he tried to intervene.
“She was a good person, a good woman who was trying to get her life back in order.”
After her death, DeVito joined the ATF as an intern, and never looked back.
He became an official agent in 1997, serving in several posts, including Miami, Washington, D.C., Virginia, New Jersey before coming to the city in 2019.
As a street agent in Miami, he investigated armed drug trafficking organizations, armed robberies of commercial businesses, armed car-jackings, gang-related racketeering, murders and firearms trafficking offenses.