500-Officer Team Arrests 46 in L.A. Gang Sweep, Dozens More Indicted
A predawn sweep today in northeast Los Angeles by more than 500 federal, state and local law enforcement officers, including 10 SWAT teams, netted 28 suspected members of a notorious street gang, the Avenues
They are being charged, along with 18 others arrested in the sweep today, with a variety of crimes, reports the Los Angeles Times. Meanwhile, another 30 suspects named, along with the 28 arrested today, in a federal grand jury indictment of more than 70 individuals, were previously arrested, and more than a dozen additional suspects named in the indictment are still being sought.
The 158-page indictment, which reportedly is to be unsealed at some point today, accuses the 70-plus alleged gang members—including 10 women—of arranging murders, selling drugs including crack cocaine and methamphetamine, and robbing and extorting money from businesses and residents in an area centered around Drew Street and Estara Avenue, as well as prostitutes and competing gang members and drug dealers. The gang also targeted black individuals for attacks, the indictment says.
It charges more than 70 claimed gang members with crimes including include murder, attempted murder of police officers, drug dealing, weapons trafficking, robbery, extortion, racketeering, money laundering and witness intimidation, most related to alleged crimes during the past two years. The gang’s activities, however, date back for generations, according to a police official.
As part of the sweep, seven owners of 10 houses and apartment buildings occupied by alleged gang members have been served with abatements requiring them to take measures, such as installing security cameras, to see that gang members are eliminated from their properties.
The indictment “reads like a crime novel,” Deputy Chief Sergio Diaz of the Los Angeles Police Department tells the newspaper. “Witness intimidation, drive-by shootings, hate crimes, you name it.”
