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Police make 191 arrests
in DeKalb warrant sweep
by Jonathan Cribbs
Jonathan@dekalbchamp.com
Police from across the metro Atlanta area swept through DeKalb County late last month, arresting 191 people and clearing about 200 warrants out of more than 1,200, police said.
The annual sweeps, known as Operation Safe Streets, are done with the help of nearby police departments. Officers pursue a small portion of the massive pool of roughly 19,000 warrants awaiting action countywide at any given time, said Deputy Chief Jeffrey Mann of the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office. This year, police also issued 146 citations.
“Every little bit obviously helps,” he said at a press conference, flanked by representatives from nearby city, county and institutional police departments.
A group of about 300 officers spread out across the county April 28-30, searching for people with the most recent warrants, Mann said. Officers prioritized the arrests, but those sought ranged from smaller offenders to those wanted for violent crimes, he said. Participating departments included those from Decatur, Avondale Estates, Doraville, Clarkston, Dunwoody, Emory University and Fulton County’s SWAT team.
This was the third year DeKalb County has swept the county in search of arrests. The majority of warrants on the officers’ list go unsatisfied. Deputies and officers cleared 80 warrants by arrest and issued 250 citations in six hours in October 2007. In 2008, police arrested 132 people and issued 325 citations in 24 hours. April’s sweep yielded the largest number of arrests.
Most of the wanted are found in residences, Mann said. Warrants that remain unanswered after the sweep are tossed back into the pool of 19,000, he said.
Mann said he did not immediately have more information regarding the types of crimes the warrants covered. He also said he did not have information about how successful the police departments are in arresting people they can’t initially find during the sweeps.
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