Local News in Brief : 33 Caught in Gang Sweep

Following on the heels of recent weekend street gang sweeps by Los Angeles police, anti-gang units from the Sheriff’s Department conducted their own operation last weekend, arresting 33 people on a variety of charges.

According to Deputy Detta Roberts, a sheriff’s spokeswoman, the gang members were booked on suspicion of such offenses as robbery, felony vandalism and burglary. Most were being held at the County Jail or at four sheriff’s substations, but several have already made bail, Roberts said.

Deputies from the department’s anti-gang unit, Operation Safe Streets, detained and briefly interviewed 144 other suspected gang members and seized nine weapons and a small quantity of cocaine and marijuana, she said.

The sweeps, which started Friday afternoon and ended late Sunday, concentrated in four areas of south Los Angeles County--Carson, Firestone, Lynwood and Lennox.

The Los Angeles Police Department’s “Operation Hammer” has resulted in the arrests of hundreds of suspected street gang members in South-Central Los Angeles in the past month.