UPDATE: Police Arrest Dozens in Undercover Gang Sweep

Gilroy Police arrested 31 people Thursday morning in the second gang sweep in two months. This followed a seven-month-long investigation.

Raids of the suspected criminals' homes began at 4 a.m. Of those arrested, 26 were actual targets. Five are still outstanding, said Sgt. Chad Gallacinao of the Gilroy Police Department.

"We ended up arresting 31 people because sometimes when we go to houses there’s other people that we didn’t expect to be there that might have warrants, that might have narcotics, that might be in violation of their terms of probation or parole, so they’re also arrested," Gallacinao said. He also said that they seized two firearms and narcotics.

Of the arrested individuals, three were juveniles. One of the juveniles, a 17-year-old male, will be prosecuted as an adult by the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office.

“Some of the crimes he committed were very premeditated, violent and because of current California law, the District Attorney’s Office thought it would be more appropriate to prosecute the individual in the adult system," he said.

Twenty one of the 31 individuals who were arrested are members of a specific criminal street gang that's based in Gilroy, but Gallacinao said he could not release the gangs that feed into it. 

"As far as the subsets or alignment, we prefer not to discuss it. The reason being is that we don’t want to give these people a notoriety for what they do," he said. "We don’t want them to take this as their badge of honor because they were investigated on this magnitude."

Although the suspects all lived in Gilroy at one time, the arrests occurred in multiple jurisdictions that include Hollister, San Martin, San Jose and Morgan Hill.

Gilory Police Chief Denise Turner said many of the arrestees have multi-generational gang affiliations.

"Today, we saw where a mom, her son, his kids, his wife—they were all in the gang," Turner said. "That’s a problem if you’re trying to get the kid out of the gang, because they’ve grown up in that environment and they don’t really know anything different."

According to the police, the arrested suspects violated the state’s Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention Act (STEP Act). To violate the act, suspects must be criminal street gang members who conduct criminal activity for the benefit of the gang.

"There’s that portion that’s a crime in itself, and there’s an enhancement portion," Gallacinao said. "So if you commit a robbery for the benefit of a gang, there’s special sentencing enhancements that you can receive because of this act."

Although Gallacinao couldn't release specifics of the arrests, he said suspects were detained for robbery, aggregated assaults that include shootings and stabbings, witness intimidation, narcotic violations and the use of minors to commit crimes. 

Over 150 law enforcement officers participated in the operation today from 20 law enforcement agencies. Primary agencies were the GPD, Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, Drug Enforcement Administration and the California Department of Justice

The Santa Clara County Superior Court issued the arrest warrants, and the suspects will be prosecuted by the District Attorney’s Office.

The and the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety were utilized to detain suspects, as well as a regional SWAT team between Morgan Hill and Gilroy.

The also lent its support in the raids with 14 police officers serving both arrest and search warrants at target residences.

"Criminals don't respect jurisdictional boundaries," said Campbell Police Capt. Dave Carmichael. "These types of crimes aren't isolated within one city and we are fortunate in Santa Clara County to have an outstanding working relationship between law enforcement agencies."

Gallacinao said he expects to see similar future investigations carried out in attempts to clean the streets of criminals, and that the GPD’s next step is to focus on directing young gang members down a different path.

“This isn’t over, we’re going to continue to investigate. There’s going to be a whole series of things we can do to try and prevent this in the future, especially with the removal of all these gang members,” Gallacinao said.

“Whenever they’re removed there’s a huge void, so we want to make sure there are proactive measures in place where we can try to subside that, so youth have other opportunities aside from joining the gang life.”

The first gang sweep ocurred in October, when over 100 individuals were arrested in .

Patch will have updates to the story as and when more information is available.

Campbell Patch Editor, Mayra Flores de Marcotte, contributed to this report.