KRIS

Posted : Feb 5, 2010 10:37 PM
Updated: Feb 6, 2010 11:06 PM

CORPUS CHRISTI - More than 100 local officers and federal agents raided homes across the city Friday in an effort to crack down on violent street crime.

That raid called Operation "Enough is Enough," has led to the arrest of several gang members.

Police also seized a slew of firearms, drugs and cash from numerous locations across the city.

Operation enough is enough led to the arrests of 5 people. Officers say they are a part of a violent street gang.

The gang, which police declined to identify by name, is responsible for: over 20 aggravated assaults, five robberies, a sexual assault and several drive-by shootings.

Additionally, police have linked the gang to three murders, including the Tinseltown murder, and a murder on Sabinas last fall.

Police raided 14 different houses. In order to prevent other gang members from learning about this operation, they raided the houses simultaneously. It was an effort of epic proportions that required the largest amount of police man-power in Corpus Christi history.

"You know I've been 31years and we've never hit 11 locations at one time, we've done sweeps where we have arrest warrants, but not search warrants. And that's a big difference when you're breaking into somebody's house and you don't know what's behind that door," said Commander David Torres.

It was a raid unlike any other this city has ever seen.

CCPD Chief Troy Riggs said, "This has been in the works for about three months; they've been working very hard on the planning. You don't just go out and do this, there's a lot of coordination, a lot of logistics. We all meet up about 6 A.M. this morning, and they started hitting them simultaneously."

Riggs said officers weren't expecting to make all of the arrests.

"You know, we went in just to look for evidence. As a result, we ended up taking a bunch of guns off the street; we also locked up 5 people."

Those members of the gang are said to have taken part in a wide variety of violent crimes, ranging from robberies to drive-by shootings, and even murder.

"There were three homicides we believe they had some part in," Riggs said.

The chief called this operation enough is enough to send a message to the community and to other gang members.

Riggs said, "The Corpus Christi Police Department and the citizens of this community aren't going to tolerate that level of violence any longer."

Police also seized computers, cell phones and portable hard-drives, because they say those electronics contain writings and pictures on various social networking sites that describe the crimes and implicate individual gang members.

Police also mentioned that two children, a four-year old and a three-month old baby were taken from one house and placed in the custody of child protective services. We're told they were later handed over to a relative.

Looking forward, Police Chief Riggs acknowledged this city has a gang problem.

He plans to confront that problem head-on stating that Operation "Enough Is Enough" is just the beginning of what we can expect to see.