Agents: 500 violent criminals arrested in Arizona crackdown

Reported by: Susan Casper
Email: scasper@abc15.com
Last Update: 7/09 7:47 pm

	Agents: 500 violent criminals arrested in Arizona crackdown
	Agents: 500 violent criminals arrested in Arizona crackdown

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PHOENIX -- Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies said Thursday they will release results of a nationwide operation to rid communities of gang members, violent criminals and sexual predators.

Federal agents told ABC15 early Thursday that 500 violent criminals were arrested during the crackdown here in Arizona.

Phoenix is the 5th largest city in the nation and is dealing with a growing amount of gang activity according to the United States Marshals office for the District of Arizona.

Right now, there are upwards of 40,000 outstanding felony warrants in Maricopa County alone and most of those crimes are linked to gangs and drugs according to Deputy U.S. Marshal Matt Hershey.

He said this multi agency nationwide crackdown was an effort to get some of those offenders off the streets. More than a dozen Valley law enforcement agencies took part in the operation including the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, Pinal County Sheriff's Office, Apache Junction Police Department and Scottsdale Police Department.

Phoenix is generally known as the kidnap capital, but new numbers show violent crimes have slightly dropped recently.

According to new data released by the FBI, metro-area cities saw a drop in violent crimes for the third year in a row. As a whole, the crime rate in the Valley was down 5.5% last year compared to 2007.

Auto thefts and property crimes were also down, according to the FBI.

Law enforcement agencies attribute the decline to greater cooperation among agencies and targeting repeat offenders and violent criminals.