Local News in Brief : Police Arrest 23 in Anti-Gang Sweep

A police anti-gang task force of two dozen officers arrested 23 people in a sweep of the Venice area, authorities said Thursday.

About half of the suspects arrested during the seven-hour operation that ended early Thursday were gang members, Sgt. Robert Tumas said.

The sweep was conducted despite a storm that drenched the region.

“Normally, the rain keeps people inside. (But) when you’re talking narcotics and gangs, weather doesn’t keep them in,” Tumas said.

The operation involved officers with the department’s Pacific Division and anti-gang investigators. The 23 suspects were arrested on a variety of charges including possession of narcotics and outstanding warrants. Officers also confiscated a double-edged dagger from a gang member, Tumas said.

Earlier this year, police ran two similar task-force operations in Venice and have arrested a total of about 60 people in the area since Jan. 1, Tumas said.

The operations are much smaller than the highly-publicized sweeps in South Central Los Angeles involving as many as 1,000 officers. But the goal is the same--”To keep the gang element off balance,” Tumas said.

Gang-related violence in Los Angeles County claimed a record 452 lives in 1988, surpassing the previous record 387 killed in 1987.

Police Chief Daryl Gates named 1988 “The Year of Gang Enforcement” and sent hundreds of officers on weekend sweeps through gang-infested areas of the city. In a series of sweeps from February 1988 through last November, police arrested more than 24,000 people, including about 13,500 gang members.