FEDS NAB 8,000 VIOLENT OFFENDERS

12-city operation involved gunfights, assaults, standoffs

WASHINGTON Federal authorities announced on Wednesday the arrests of more than 8,000 violent fugitives, including 559 accused of murder, in the past six weeks as part of an operation aimed at combating persistent crime in 12 cities.

In Baltimore, 148 fugitives were swept up, including 23 murder suspects in the effort led by the U.S. Marshals Service, known as Operation Violence Reduction 12.

“With warrants in hand and after extensive extra training for the dangerous situations they were likely to encounter, the marshals and our state and local partners went to work getting the worst of the worst off of our streets,” Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates said.

Among the most serious of- fenders were 648 alleged gang members and 846 suspected sex offenders arrested in Brooklyn, N.Y.; Camden, N.J.; Chicago; Compton, Calif.; Fresno, Calif.; Gary, Ind.; Milwaukee; New Orleans; Oakland; Savannah, Ga.; and Washington.

In some cases, the deputy attorney general said, the targeted fugitives “initiated gunbattles, forced barricaded standoffs, assaulted officers and did everything they could to evade arrest.”

“This was a lot of work and not an easy task,” Yates said. “But by planning this carefully, they were able to target that handful of bad guys who cause the most violence in our communities and who were out on our streets despite having open warrants for their arrest.”

The average suspect netted in the mass arrests was 35 years old and had seven prior arrests and three convictions.

“This truly validated that we were going after the most dangerous criminals who were hardened, experienced and repeat offenders,” said David Harlow, deputy director of the U.S. Marshals Service.

Among the 8,075 suspects were Blake Fitzgerald and Brittany Harper, whose string of multistate warrants on charges of armed robbery, burglary and kidnapping earned them national notoriety as the modern-day “Bonnie and Clyde.” Last month, while attempting to flee members of a marshals task force in Florida, the couple allegedly fired on officers. The gunbattle left Fitzgerald dead. Harper was arrested.

The six-week sweep also resulted in the recovery of 17 children, ages 11 months to 15 years, who had been abducted.