3,300 Fugitives Arrested in U.S. Roundup : Crime: National operation nets dangerous suspects with violent pasts. Law officers nab 211 in Los Angeles during 10-week period.

A national roundup of dangerous fugitives has netted more than 3,300 suspected felons, many of them wanted for multiple violent crimes and drug offenses.

Code-named “Operation Gunsmoke,” the roundup has been running for 10 weeks and has centered on corralling fugitives with violent criminal histories.

“I’m very pleased and I breathe a sigh of relief,” said U.S. Marshal Craig Meacham at a Thursday news conference. “These people where convicted of violent crimes, serious offenses. I really expected that somewhere in this, somebody would get shot. But we managed to do the whole thing without a shot fired.”

The roundup of Los Angeles-area fugitives was handled by a team of 39 officers--representing the U.S. Marshals Service, the Los Angeles Police and Sheriff’s departments, and the Los Angeles County marshal. Those officers arrested 211 people in 10 weeks, placing Los Angeles fourth among U.S. cities for finding fugitives.

By mid-April, the wall of Operation Gunsmoke’s Pico Rivera headquarters was plastered with the photographs of arrested suspects. Most arrests were made without incident but a few resulted in tense standoffs and nearly all involved potentially dangerous criminals.

On April 10, officers closed in on Charles H. Lyles, a San Bernardino resident who was wanted for armed robbery, kidnaping and assault with a deadly weapon. Deputies surrounded Lyles’ home early in the morning and ordered him to come out.

Lyles sent out his children, his wife and his grandmother, but he stayed inside, refusing to come out even after the marshals lobbed in tear gas.

The marshals went in after him, and found Lyles hiding beneath the insulation in his attic.

Most of the arrests were routine, but even the simpler ones involved laborious investigation.

Many fugitives had given addresses for their parents or girlfriends, and when marshals arrived, the family members often were uncooperative, leading to nerve-racking confrontations.

Last week, a group of six marshals surrounded a Pico Rivera home just after sunrise. Four officers stood at the corners of the house as two pounded on the front door, demanding that the residents open up.

When a woman who answered the door moved slowly to unlock it, the officers brusquely insisted that she comply.

“I understand that you have to take him, but he’s got to get his clothes on,” the woman said, refusing at first to unlock the screen door.

Officers pushed by her and corralled the suspect, Don Russell Colbert, 28, a convicted armed robber who was wanted for violating his parole. He had allegedly failed several drug tests and stopped checking in with his parole officer.

“Is there a gun in here?” one marshal asked as she directed the woman out of the way.

“Hell no, I have kids,” the woman said.

In a second investigation last week, marshals closed in on Robert Wayne Brewer, a 35-year-old Monrovia resident who was convicted of armed robbery in 1984. According to court records, Brewer was paroled last year, but failed several drug tests, a violation of his parole conditions.

Investigators tried to get Brewer at work, but his employer told them he had been laid off and had not left a forwarding address.

That led the marshals to Brewer’s parents.

“He went to turn himself in,” Brewer’s stepfather told U.S. Marshal Melissa Moore. “He was going to go yesterday, but he wanted to finish a job he was working on.”

Moore and the other officers looked skeptical.

“This is not going to go away,” Moore told him. “We’re going to keep coming back and keep coming back, and he’s going to go to jail.”

The next day, Brewer turned himself in.