On May 2, the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office conducted Operation Safe Streets, with the goal of apprehending people with outstanding warrants for serious crimes.
The operation was led by the Sheriff’s Office Fugitive Apprehension Unit and used personnel from various units within the Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigations Division and Patrol Division. The operation resulted in the arrest of 18 people and the expungement of 21 felony warrants.
Although the total amount of bonds for all the morning arrests was one million 76 thousand dollars, it should be noted that four of the arrest warrants did not have bond issued.
People accused of violent crimes, robbery, bribery, forgery, fraud, perjury, extortion or robbery, sexual abuse, rape, among other crimes that maintain their processes in the courts and have not complied with their mandates were searched at their homes in the morning and afternoon Tuesday.
During the deployment that spanned the entire county of El Paso, from Anthony to Tornillo, Texas, officers arrived at homes in search of the fugitives, however not all were at home and others did not open the doors.
Officer Rodríguez explained that even though they had arrest warrants, they cannot enter the houses freely unless they are certain that the individual is inside.
“We need to have security and for a witness to confirm that he is inside. We have to be very careful otherwise they can sue us together with the Sheriff’s Department because technically we were violating the rights of those people, ”he said while waiting for a man accused of 15 counts of sexual assault against a minor to come out.
