OAKLAND — More than 130 fugitives, almost half from Oakland, wanted in killings, shootings, robberies, drugs and other crimes, were arrested during a recent Bay Area sweep led by federal marshals, officials said Thursday.
Authorities also seized at least 27 firearms, narcotics, an explosive device and other evidence during the six-week operation, authorities said at a news conference in downtown Oakland.
The Bay Area sweep was part of a nationwide operation, called Violence Reduction 7, that netted more than 7,100 fugitives and focused on violent offenders and gang members.
Melinda Haag, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California, said the goal was “to help support and enhance local law enforcement efforts.”
Don O’Keefe, U.S. marshal for the Northern District of California, praised local law enforcement agencies that assisted. He said it was “gratifying to get (violent) people off the street and into the criminal justice system and give victims’ families some closure.”
Of 133 arrests in the Bay Area, 60 were suspects in Oakland crimes, including Alex Davis, 25, one of seven people charged so far in the fatal shooting of a West Oakland mother of three caught in a crossfire between two groups.
Nationwide, the operation’s 7,127 arrests included 750 gang members, seizure of 383 firearms and more than 69 kilograms of illegal narcotics, officials said. Individual charges included 519 for homicide; 922 for weapons; 1,888 for assault; 583 for sexual assault; 1,093 for robbery; and 2,654 for narcotics.
Oakland Chief Sean Whent thanked the marshals for their help. He said if violent suspects are not apprehended, “they will continue to commit the most violence.”
In one bust that took place March 19, agents had followed two homicide suspects in two states wanted in a 2011 Oakland double slaying at an East Oakland apartment complex. For more than three weeks, they tracked Oakland resident Kyle Puckett, 26, and Dashawn Rico, 22, lying in wait outside their homes and work, or residences belonging to their friends and family.
Puckett, who has an Oakland address, was eventually arrested in Antioch. Rico was arrested that same day in Reno.
Both men were charged with two counts of special circumstance murder for the killings committed during an Oct. 15, 2011, robbery and stand accused of killing Raymond Greenwood, 20, of Oroville, and Joshua Crouseite, 22, of Fairfield, in the courtyard of the complex in the 1300 block of MacArthur Boulevard.
In a bust seven days earlier, on March 12, agents tracked down another homicide suspect and followed him in a car to an Antioch apartment in the 1000 block of Claudia Court, where he holed up during a brief standoff.
Carlos Ventura, 22, of Antioch, was arrested and charged in the death of a San Francisco man killed last August on Lawton Street in Antioch.
Locally, the sweep took place between March 2 and April 10. Besides Oakland police, other agencies included: California Highway Patrol, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Alameda County Probation Department, Contra Costa, Santa Clara and Monterey county sheriffs offices, Department of Homeland Security, federal Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the FBI and the Northern California High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (Regional Intel Center).
Contact Natalie Neysa Alund at 510-293-2469. Follow her at Twitter.com/nataliealund.
