Gangs Targeted in Federal Sweep : Law enforcement: More than 160 Crips and Bloods are arrested in 11 states. Expanded drug dealing prompted the two-day operation, agents say.

More than 160 suspected affiliates of the Los Angeles-based Crips and Bloods gangs were arrested in a novel two-day sweep by federal agents seeking to check a national migration of the city’s street violence, authorities announced Friday.

In what they dubbed “Operation Streetsweep,” agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms arrested 166 people in 11 states and seized an unspecified amount of drugs, guns and cash. The raids began early Thursday and were not expected to end until late Friday night, ATF officials said.

Agents said the sweep--two years in preparation--was prompted by the budding expansion of the gangs’ drug-dealing operations out of Southern California and into other corners of the country. In recent years, members of Crips, Bloods and other L.A. street gangs have been identified in scores of cities across the country.

“The Crips and Bloods were targeted because their level of violence has spread with the spread of drugs,” ATF Special Agent Andrew Vita told a Los Angeles press conference. “We have investigations going in 32 other states and 69 other cities.”

Vita said 135 gang members were arrested in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties. Other arrests were scattered across Northern California and 10 other states, including Louisiana, Oregon, Arizona, Missouri, Oklahoma and Washington.

Another 100 were expected to be arrested later Friday and through the weekend.

“We managed to get about 75% to 80% of those we were looking for,” Vita said. “We hope to get the rest soon.”

In San Diego County, five gang members have been arrested since the sweep began, and more arrests are expected, according to a press release from the local ATF office.

The county probation office assisted the sweep by providing the names of five known gang members who are on probation in the area, said Tom Pautler, director of special operations. Probation officials told the bureau whether the condition of the gang members’ probation allows searches of their residences without warrants, Pautler said.

“We did not go out in the field on this,” he said. “We strictly provided (the ATF) information on probationers.”

Neither San Diego city police nor the county Sheriff’s Department was involved in the sweep.

ATF agents said the gang members were arrested on a variety of federal gun and drug charges. Arraignments began early Friday in U.S district courts around the country for those apprehended, but by late afternoon none were believed to have been released.

Officials said one motivation for Operation Streetsweep was that federal sentencing laws generally are harsher than local statutes. The ATF’s major weapon is the federal Gun Control Act, which provides tough sentencing provisions--a minimum of five years in prison--for use of firearms in drug trafficking, regardless of the amount of narcotics involved.

“The local agencies can’t get them into federal court without help from federal agents,” said Stephen E. Higgins, director of ATF, who appeared at the Los Angeles press conference. “In federal court, many of those without felonies will face a minimum of five years. Those with felonies are looking at 15 years--no probation, no parole.”

At the same time, the operation--not unlike many such law enforcement “crackdowns”--had the trappings of symbolic gesture, a characterization that the agents permitted to flourish. On some of the raids in Los Angeles, for example, television news crews were allowed to accompany law enforcement agents to film the busts.

“We’re trying to show that the gang problem is not just limited to Los Angeles,” said Vita, speaking on the steps of the Naval Training Center. “It’s a nationwide problem and we believe the federal government can have some impact.”

Added Higgins: “What began as a Los Angeles problem has now spread to a national one. This is a significant step to our commitment attacking drugs” and was “intended to send a message to violent street gangs.”

Some local drug investigators around the country were a bit baffled by the fanfare with which the arrests were announced. Oklahoma City Police Maj. Bob Tayor said his department’s involvement in Operation Streetsweep began when federal agents “contacted us and said they wanted to do one (a raid) here.”

Taylor said officers then led the federal agents on a raid of a local crack house, where five local people were arrested for involvement with drugs believed to have been supplied by an L.A. gang. Taylor described those arrested as gang “wannabes.”

In South Los Angeles, where many of the arrests occurred, some residents contended that the agents’ attempt at sending a message to gang members was misguided.

“We must stop the source of drugs at the point of entry,” said Chilton Alphonse, founder of the Community Youth Sports and Arts Foundation, which provides counseling to gang members. “Black children do not have the means--the boats and the planes--to be bringing drugs into this country. . . . Government and law enforcement should be attacking the supply, those individuals importing cocaine into the country.”

Aside from being misdirected, said residents, such efforts are just plain ineffective.

“The CRASH nights (sporadically scheduled sweeps by Los Angeles police officers) caught some people by surprise,” said a former gang member who identified himself as Lil’ Too Tall. “But people got used to them real fast. . . . Dope sellers would just kick it (rest) and come out on nights the police weren’t around.”

ATF officials said operations such as Streetsweep have potential as a weapon against street gangs, and they said without elaboration that there would be more in the future.

Agents said other law enforcement agencies were involved in Operation Streetsweep, including the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the U.S. attorney’s office.

In addition, the Air Force supplied a C-5A jet to ferry 22 federal agents to Southern California Thursday to make--and announce--arrests. Air Force pilots unloaded participating agents at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in Orange County. It was the first time any military branch has joined domestic drug-fighting efforts, they said.

“We needed the extra agents because we didn’t have enough in our Los Angeles district office alone,” said Vita. “We knew this would be big, so we called for added help.”

Operation Streetsweep marked the culmination of two years of planning by the law enforcement agencies, Higgins said. The original idea for the massive crackdown began evolving from the federal government’s ongoing battle with the fierce Jamaican drug-dealing gangs, called “posses,” that are terrorizing several East Coast cities.

Alarmed by the spread of the posses and gangs, Higgins said, the U.S. Justice Department recruited the ATF to stem the illegal gun-running that often goes hand-in-hand with the drug trade.

“We saw that the posses were spreading, and what they are doing was similar to what the gangs in Los Angeles are doing,” said Higgins, whose agency has monitored the national migration of Crips and Bloods for more than a year. “The posses are spreading West and the Los Angeles gangs are going eastward.”

ATF officials said that some illegal Jamaican immigrants were arrested during Operation Streetsweep, but they were unsure if the nationals belong to any posses. Still, authorities acknowledged that posses are active in Los Angeles and a few even work in concert with the Crips and the Bloods.

Last spring, one agent from each of the ATF’s 22 national offices flew into Los Angeles for briefings on the gangs with the LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Higgins said.

Operation Streetsweep began at dawn Thursday and many of the arrests were made simultaneously across the country.

Times staff writers Jim Carlton, John H. Lee, Paul Lieberman and Henry Weinstein contributed to this report.