Task Force Arrests 41 in Warrant Crackdown

To reduce a backlog of outstanding felony warrants, the county Sheriff’s Department has assembled a team of deputies to round up wanted felons.

Twelve deputies, working in pairs, arrested 41 people and cleared 53 warrants in the first four days of the two-week effort that began last Tuesday, said Lt. Kathy Kemp of the Sheriff’s Department. The task force will continue through this Saturday.

Kemp said the team’s progress last week exceeded the department’s expectations because of the difficulty in finding people wanted on felony warrants. “Most of these guys, if they can do it, avoid capture,” she said. “They’re usually on parole and they know felony charges are against them.”

In one of the arrests made during the sweep, deputies chased and then wrestled with a man who tried to escape through a window in El Rio. Another suspect was arrested while carrying a loaded gun. The other 39 arrests were made without incident, Kemp said.

Although the Sheriff’s Department has conducted warrant sweeps in the past, those operations have focused on clearing traffic and misdemeanor warrants, Kemp said.

Last fall, the sheriff’s warrants bureau, which is responsible for serving all of the warrants issued by Ventura County courts, was cut from seven detectives to two. Since then, only serious felony warrants have been actively worked, and the number served by the bureau has fallen dramatically.

The task force was made up of the two warrants detectives, two narcotics detectives and eight patrol deputies. They have been targeting 200 felony warrants issued by the courts during the past six months. All together, Ventura County has more than 95,000 outstanding warrants of which 65,000 were issued for crimes other than traffic violations.