10,000 Arrested in U.S. Fugitive Roundup

WASHINGTON —  In an operation that was equal parts police work, public relations and lobbying, the Justice Department said Thursday that it had conducted an unusual weeklong sweep with state and local authorities that led to the arrest of more than 10,000 fugitives wanted for murder, rape, kidnapping, robbery and drug offenses.

The dragnet, which the government said it orchestrated to coincide with National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, involved more than 3,100 law enforcement officers from across the country and a cross section of agents from 25 federal agencies, led by the Marshals Service.

The sweep, accompanied by camera crews whose footage was aired on news programs after the arrests were announced, netted 162 murder suspects, 154 alleged gang members and 106 unregistered sex offenders, as well as guns, drugs, cash and property.

The elaborate statistics were rolled out at a news conference at which officials said the exercise was an opportunity to show the benefits of cooperative law enforcement in an age of terrorism -- and to score points with members of Congress.

The roundup was funded under a program that Congress established four years ago requiring the Marshals Service to help state and local authorities clear the streets of the most violent criminals. The program has netted more than 147,000 fugitives.

The arrests represented a fraction of the number of fugitives taken into custody by law enforcement authorities every year, and 1% of the nearly 1 million fugitives in the FBI national database, according to the Marshals Service.

Officials conceded that most if not all the suspects picked up during the weeklong roundup, which began April 4 and ended Sunday, eventually would have been apprehended.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales said the effort had yielded “the highest number of arrests ever recorded for a single initiative of its kind.”

The operation had its own acronym, FALCON -- for Federal and Local Cops Organized Nationally.

Among those taken into custody was an alleged sex offender with prior arrests for arson and drug dealing who was caught in the cellar of a home in Atlanta. Police in Dallas arrested a man sought in connection with a shooting in February.

The arrests included 16 international fugitives, 11 of whom authorities said had committed crimes in the U.S. and fled to countries including Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Britain and Canada.

Also arrested were four suspects wanted in Mexico for homicide who had entered the U.S. illegally.

One of the Mexican fugitives, Sebastian Obando, had been the subject of a warrant outstanding since November 1997 in connection with a kidnapping and extortion plot involving a Mexican businessman who was killed.

He was arrested April 7 by the Marshals Service in Los Angeles after Mexican authorities had approached U.S. officials in March with tips on his whereabouts.

Andres Jimenez, a Marshals Service inspector in Los Angeles, said the nationwide operation hastened the arrest by increasing the surveillance that agents were able to conduct.

“We had three possible locations for him, and so instead of watching one for 24 hours, we were able to go to all three, and they dragged him at one of the three,” Jimenez said.

There were 176 arrests in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

In all, the government said 10,340 fugitives were apprehended, with more than 40% of the cases involving drug suspects.

Officials said they were able to clear 13,861 arrest warrants. Some fugitives had more than one warrant outstanding; others turned out to be dead.

The cost to the Marshals Service was $900,000, mainly for state and local police working overtime, according to Robert Finan, the Marshals Service assistant director for investigative services. Agents also suffered three dog bites, Finan said. Another officer was injured in an auto accident, he said.

The show of force drew on an array of federal resources, including officers from the inspector general offices of the Social Security Administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Agriculture Department.

Such sweeps not only take fugitives off the streets but can send a message to criminals that “the long arm of the law is still there and that they can’t stop looking over their shoulder,” said James Alan Fox, a professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University in Boston.

“But that assumes these dragnets are done repeatedly, not just one time during victims awareness week,” Fox said. “If that were the case, the fugitive would probably take a vacation during victims awareness week and go hide. The element of surprise is important.”