Long Beach Raid Yields 69 Arrests

Cracking down on a racially charged gang feud that may have led to eight murders this year, the Long Beach Police Department swept through the city’s crime-stung neighborhoods this week, racking up 69 arrests so far in one of the largest police deployments in city history.

Investigators pounced on two large sectors of the city, arresting suspects on a wide variety of drug and weapons charges, confiscating caches of firearms and methamphetamines, and collecting tips relating to the retribution murders committed this month.

The ongoing sweep involved up to 120 officers per day and is the biggest joint effort of the department’s homicide, gang and patrol sections.

Police officials launched the sweep last week in the wake of a series of deadly shootings scattered across Long Beach. Investigators believe that inflamed tensions between two prison gangs, the Mexican Mafia and the Black Guerrilla Family, have seeped into the streets and erupted in violence.

Of the nine homicides recorded before the sweep began Jan. 17, at least four are believed to be related to tensions between black and Latino factions, investigators said.

“We’re trying to get them off the street at least for a couple of nights, while things settle down,” said Sgt. Robert Luna.

Since the crackdown started, there has been only one murder and it was not related to the gang violence but to a robbery, police said.

None of the arrests in the sweep were for this month’s shootings, but investigators say they are closer to apprehending suspects in those murders.

Police had not finished compiling data on the operation, but estimated that 40% of the suspects arrested were juveniles.

Typically, Officers involved in similar sweeps have approached residences andgang hangouts and questioned suspects. The task force did not serve any search warrants in the sweep, police said.

The operation was the first so-called directed patrol sweep since 1994, when the department deployed 60 officers per night to put an end to a bloody Asian-Latino gang war that claimed 38 lives. In that sweep, however, the department’s goal was to drive the two warring factions into a truce. This week’s sweep was aimed at cooling tensions by removing gang members from the street.

City officials and police Officials lauded the operation as a symbol of the department’s ability to clean up the streets of a city that some believe reacted too slowly to rising gang violence in the early 1990s.

Police officials are considering making the sweep task force a permanent unit, Luna said.

“Anything we can do to put a stumbling block in [gang] activities is going to be supported by everybody,” said Councilman Mike Donelon.

“We need to communicate a clear message, that gangs are not welcome,” said council member Jenny Oropeza, whose district includes one of the sweep zones.

Police also praised the results of the unusual multi-unit approach, which involved officers from different geographic divisions.

“It’s a strategy we have not used before. We’re combining specialized units to focus on a specific problem,” said Cmdr. Robert Forbes. “We’re very happy so far with the . . . level of crime that has dropped on the streets.”

Police officials had grown alarmed when the city registered nine murders for the first two weeks of this year, compared with five in the same period last year.

Police intelligence reported that friction between the two prison gangs, rivals for 20 years, had spilled over into Long Beach neighborhoods.

“What happens is, that stuff kind of trickles down, especially along racial lines,” said Cmdr. Anthony Batts. “We took a look and that seemed to be what was happening in our city as well.”