Above: A photo of mugshots posted on the Kingston Police Department's Facebook wall after Saturday's arrests.
Local news outlets were buzzing last weekend with the news: A massive crackdown on drug and gang activity in the Kingston area, dubbed "Operation Clean Sweep," yielded 101 arrests and 536 felony charges.
On Saturday afternoon, March 31, local and state law enforcement held a congratulatory press conference on the at Kingston City Court, with mugshots stamped "In Custody" placed in front of speakers.
The Kingston Police Department posted statistics on the arrests on their Facebook page. Of the 101 people arrested, officers say, 36 were Bloods, three Crips, and five Blackouts. Charges included drug sale and possession, weapons possession, robbery and assault.
The Kingston Times reports that police have been building cases against those arrested for nearly a year:
The cases were made, police officials said, through months of painstaking undercover work, drug buys and observation. In the pre-dawn hours of Saturday morning, teams of officers from numerous agencies – state and city police, town police from Woodstock and Shawangunk and the U.S. Marshals Service – moved in on their targets. Suspects were taken to a central location, processed and sent to Ulster County Jail. “We had to build a new wing,” one official quipped. Some suspects are still at large, police officials said.
The crackdown isn't over yet, the Times Herald-Record reports:
"It is not the end," said Kingston police Chief Egidio Tinti. "This is just the first."
The majority of the arrests occurred in and around Midtown Kingston. There also were arrests in other Ulster County communities, the city of Poughkeepsie and New York City, authorities said.
“There were some arrests ... in Saugerties, Marbletown and Rosendale,” Tinti said. “This was a widespread operation that will continue.”
