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Friday, 03 April 2009 |
More than 45 warrants were served and more than 20 people were arrested on Thursday when local law enforcement agencies and the U.S. Marshals Service conducted the Operation Spring Cleaning warrants sweep.
“We had a good day,” Benton Police Sgt. Kevin Russell said. “We originally were serving around 20 warrants, but the officers kept coming back from making the arrests and we gave them more warrants. We exceeded our goal, so it was definitely a good day.”
Officers from the Benton and Bryant police departments, Saline County Sher-iff’s Office and U.S. Marshals Service met at 7 a.m. on the parking lot of the Saline County Detention Center ready to spring into action.
In all, 24 people are behind bars because of the operation, but Benton Police Chief Kirk Lane said almost as important is numerous agencies working together.
“You should see the teams together,” Lane said. “This is a big building thing for inter-agencies working together. They are learning to communicate with each other for a common goal.”
Local officers physically made the arrests, but Lane said numerous law agencies throughout Arkansas and even some agencies in other states were contacted to help the operation.
“We are passing information off to each other quickly,” Lane said early Thursday. “The officers are meeting with agencies all over Arkansas to locate suspects and coordinating with them to make the arrests. We have already found some [suspects] in other states and we are getting that information from the U.S. Marshals.”
Benton Sgt. Kevin Russell said he was surprised at how fast some of the warrants were served. He said two arrests were already made within minutes of the officers heading out of the parking lot.
“I think this operation shows a good joint effort and shows that we are unified in fighting crime,” Russell said. “This hasn’t been done before in Saline County, at least within recent memory.”
Russell said the idea was mainly to serve felony warrants for the most wanted suspects, but he also said warrants were served for a variety of crimes.
“We are serving everything from sex offenders, warrants for breaking and entering, burglary suspects and more,” Russell said. “These are people who need to be off the streets.”
Lane said the idea of Operation Spring Cleaning came from two events, the emphasis on serving warrants throughout the month of March and from recent interagency meetings.
In March, the Benton Police Department launched an operation to serve more than 3,000 warrants, some dating back to 2002. For three months, Lane said all law enforcement chiefs and Saline County Sheriff Bruce Pennington have started meeting together to discuss issues pertaining to local law enforcement.
“This idea came out of a chiefs’ meeting,” Lane said. “When we met, we talked about Benton focusing on serving warrants in March and decided to have all the agencies work together to round up the suspects. It took us three or for weeks to coordinate it ... and we are going to try to do a warrants sweep several times a year.”
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