Local, state and federal law-enforcement officers announced Thursday they have arrested more than 10,000 fugitives across the nation, including about 200 in the Chicago area, in what the U.S. Marshals Service said was the largest sweep of its kind ever.
The dragnet saw about 3,000 officers from 960 police agencies fan out in the last week to track down fugitives wanted on a wide variety of charges. Nationally, more than 150 of those arrested were sought on murder charges, another 550 on rape allegations and more than 600 in armed robberies.
Those arrested in the Chicago area included a man who escaped from a federal detention center in New Jersey eight years ago and another wanted in for two murders in a south suburb.
The nationwide dragnet also pulled in more than 100 unregistered sex offenders and 150 gang members, with reports on captures still trickling in, officials said.
Code-named Operation FALCON, for Federal and Local Cops Organized Nationally, the sweep was aimed at concentrating police resources and sharing information across jurisdictional lines in a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day push to round up fugitives, said Marshals Service Director Benigno Reyna. He announced the results at a Washington news briefing with Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales.
It also seemed designed to reap maximum attention for the relatively low-profile Marshals Service as Congress considers federal agency budgets for the coming year. The marshals have coordinated regional sweeps in the past that centered on New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta and Washington, but never attempted to tie together a sweep by law-enforcement agencies across the entire country, Reyna said.
The Marshals Service financed the bulk of the effort with $900,000 to pay for overtime for state and local officers, officials said.
Officials reported no shootings or serious injuries during the arrests, but said three officers suffered dog bites.
Chicago-area captures
In Chicago, U.S. Marshal Kim Widup of the Northern District of Illinois praised the operation as “a modern-day, 21st Century posse of the highest order.”
Among those arrested was Earl Travis, 23, who was wanted for shootings that left two men dead in south suburban Riverdale in February.
Marshals tracked Travis to Rock Island, back to Chicago, and then to Iowa before his arrest in Davenport.
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Three other local men, Lazaro Gutierrez, Rosendo Ruiz and Cordell Perry, were arrested on murder warrants.
“That’s the most gratifying thing, when you get to go back to that mother whose child was murdered for no reason and tell her we got the person who killed your son,” said Geoff Shank, chief inspector of the Marshals’ Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force, which led the Chicago regional roundup. “That’s indescribable.”
Also arrested was Michael Andrews, 52, who was using the name Maximillian Bond and living in Roselle.
Authorities said Andrews had been convicted of bank fraud in Philadelphia, but escaped from a federal detention center at Ft. Dix, N.J., in 1997.
“He was living with a woman in Roselle, and had started a new life,” said Deputy U.S. Marshal John Jaehnig in Chicago. “He was doing quite well for himself.”
Marshals said they tracked Andrews through his girlfriend and finally by knocking on doors at his apartment building.
“Everybody knew him, he was very personable,” Jaehnig said. “Someone finally told us what train he was going to be on coming home. We caught up to him walking down the street.”
Gonzales said he wants to demonstrate that while preventing terrorism is a Justice Department priority, “we’re not turning a blind eye to other kinds of crime.”
He noted that about 70 percent of those picked up were repeat offenders.
Showcasing effort
Justice officials also showed a keen awareness of the public relations value of their effort, augmenting the Washington news conference with dramatic video footage of arrests for local television stations, and also holding regional news briefings, including one in Chicago.
The Washington briefing was Gonzales’ first at the Justice Department headquarters since being confirmed as attorney general.
He shared top billing with fellow Texan and Mexican-American Reyna, drawing a heavy contingent of Spanish language media.
The April 4-10 span of Operation FALCON was timed to coincide with Crime Victims Rights Week and it occurred during the season for congressional budget hearings.
“We want to show Congress that we’ve done what they asked us to do”–catch criminals, said Bob Finan, the Marshals Service assistant director for investigations, who coordinated the overall effort. He and other officials said they likely would try another national roundup.
But it was not immediately clear how much of a dent the sweep put in the nation’s at-large population of criminals.
Finan said that last year the Marshals Service was involved in the capture of about 92,000 fugitives wanted on federal, state or local warrants
But Finan said there’s no central registry of outstanding warrants, so there’s no way to tell how many fugitives are on the loose.
Nor is it clear whether financially pressed local police departments that rose to the occasion with the help of overtime funding from the Marshals Service can sustain efforts on their own to catch fugitives.
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Marshals arrest hundreds locally
U.S. Marshals netted more than 10,340 fugitives, including 216 in the Chicago area.
CHICAGO-AREA ARREST WARRANTS CLEARED
From April 4-10; by type of offense
%% Narcotics 71
Burglary/larceny 48
Financial/fraud 24
Assault 19
Sex offenses 13
Weapons 10
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Stolen vehicles 7
Homicide 6
Other 58
%% *Some of those arrested were wanted on multiple warrants.
Source: U.S. Marshals
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