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Chicago Part Of Marshal's Dragnet That Rounds Up Thousands Of Fugitives

(CBS) -- The U.S. Marshal's Service has rounded up 123 people they describe as fugitives, gang members, sex offenders and violent criminals locally as part of a six-week nationwide sweep that took more than 7,100 fugitives off the streets.

The U.S. Marshal's Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force spearheaded the local operation and was responsible for 477 felony fugitive arrests in three states: Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.

A spokesperson said most of the fugitives were wanted for murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, robbery, aggravated assault, arson, abduction and kidnapping, sexual assault and child molestation.  Others with three or more prior felony arrests for violent crimes who were wanted for drug, weapons offenses, assault, battery and threats also were targeted.

A deputy marshal was killed in Louisiana while carrying out the roundup -- the first on-duty death of a marshal in four years. Josie Wells was fatally wounded in a March 10 shootout with a suspect on the outskirts of Baton Rouge.

The spokesperson said 10 missing children also were located.

The roundup began March 2.  Law enforcement teams throughout the state of Illinois used real-time, ground-level intelligence on criminal activity.  The spokesperson said that the result was an apprehension rate by the task force of almost 10 wanted felons a day.

In addition to Chicago, the operation resulted in arrests in Atlanta, Baltimore, Fort Lauderdale, New Orleans, Oakland and in Camden, N.J.  The 7,127 arrests included 750 nationally said to be gang members. Marshals seized 383 guns and 69 kilograms of illegal drugs. Among the charges nationally were 519 for murder, 922 for weapons violations, 1,888 for assault, 583 for sexual assault, 1,093 for robbery and 2,654 for drugs.

 

 

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