22 Arrested in Broad Sweep Targeting 2 Anaheim Gangs : Police: Operations focus on aiding neighborhood near Disneyland. Unrelated raid carried out in Rancho Santa Margarita.

Armed with arrest warrants, more than 85 Anaheim police officers and others swept through six cities Thursday morning to crack down on members of two Anaheim gangs.

The early morning raid resulted in 22 arrests, most for probation and parole violations, old arrest warrants and possession of firearms, said Anaheim Police Lt. Marc Hedgpeth.

Police also seized three handguns, other weapons and gang paraphernalia, including clothing.

“Basically, we’re there to help the good citizens of the neighborhood and respond to their needs, and we’re willing to amass resources to get this kind of a message to the gang members,” Anaheim Police Sgt. Craig Hunter said.

In an unrelated operation, members of the Tri-Agency Resource Gang Enforcement Team searched a dozen homes in South County on Thursday, arresting three people and confiscating several weapons. The raid is part of an investigation into a drive-by shooting in a Rancho Santa Margarita neighborhood that left the community in an uproar.

In the North County gang sweep, officers descended on 87 locations in Anaheim, Orange, Garden Grove, Santa Ana, Stanton and Fullerton in an effort to crack down on members of two gangs. The gangs are based in the Jeffrey-Lynne neighborhood, which authorities say is a crime-plagued collection of densely populated apartments west of Disneyland--and the neighborhood near Philadelphia and Valencia streets.

Hunter said police hope the arrests will lead to breaks in several unsolved cases, including a homicide and the shooting of a pizza delivery driver, which left him paralyzed.

Police officers fanned out through the six cities, accompanied by parole and probation officers and district attorney investigators. Of the 22 arrested, six are juveniles. Four were arrested on probation violations, one for possession of stolen property and another for possessing a handgun.

Of the adults, six were arrested for parole violations, two for possession of firearms, seven on arrest warrants for various crimes, and one for being under the influence of drugs, Hedgpeth said.

The Jeffrey-Lynne neighborhood has been plagued by drive-by shootings, auto thefts and strong-arm robberies for years, police and residents said. Police searched in the five other cities for gang members who used to live in the Jeffrey-Lynne neighborhood and still return there.

Connie Rodriguez, who often calls police to report taggers and gang confrontations outside her apartment, said gang members often rob visitors leaving Disneyland and recently placed a metal pole in the intersection of West Cerritos Avenue and Walnut Street to impede traffic and rob passersby.

While Rodriguez was pleased to hear that police had made arrests, she was skeptical that anything would change in the neighborhood.

“It’s always been the same because the police don’t respond to the calls,” Rodriguez said. “It’s been like this forever. We need to see results, because it’s all talk.”

In South County, authorities with TARGET searched a dozen homes from Dana Point to Dove Canyon, arresting two suspected gang members as part of an investigation into a drive-by shooting earlier this month in a Rancho Santa Margarita neighborhood.

About 60 law enforcement officers involved in the sweep set up a command post at Mission Viejo City Hall before serving warrants, starting about 7 a.m., said Deputy Dist. Atty. Gary Paer, who is assigned to the TARGET unit in South Orange County.

TARGET is a multi-agency gang task force pioneered in Westminster that teams police officers with probation officers and deputy district attorneys to track and prosecute gang-related crimes. Anaheim also has a TARGET team, which was involved in the North County raid.

In South County, authorities confiscated about 10 weapons and gang paraphernalia, Paer said. The unit arrested one 25-year-old Dove Canyon man on suspicion of possessing stolen telecommunications technology, while a 17-year-old Mission Viejo boy was arrested on suspicion of probation violation.

The TARGET sweep, part of an ongoing investigation of local Asian gang activity, was in response to a May 7 incident in which someone fired four rounds from a car into a home on San Anselmo, Paer said. No one was injured.

Charlie Ison, 19, of Rancho Santa Margarita was arrested last week on suspicion of having been the triggerman and is being held in Orange County Jail on $250,000 bail while awaiting a preliminary hearing, Paer said.