OAKLAND — Suspected firearms and narcotics traffickers were arrested Thursday in a series of law enforcement raids throughout the area, authorities said.
Besides the arrests, some guns and other evidence was seized, authorities said at a news conference at Oakland police headquarters.
Some of the guns seized have been linked to some Oakland murders and shootings, Chief of Police Anne. E. Kirkpatrick said.
Officials did not immediately announce any suspects or arrests in specific shooting incidents. Authorities would only say more than four dozen firearms have been seized and multiple suspects arrested on federal charges.
There was no mention of any narcotics being seized.
Raids were conducted in Oakland and other cities, officials said, but they did not provide any specific locations outside the city.
The investigation was begun by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which was eventually assisted by the federal Drug Enforcement Agency and Oakland police.
Because of the federal government shutdown, representatives from the ATF and DEA were not at the news conference.
“This morning’s operation is actually the result of an investigation that was initiated by ATF and they were doing a major operation into drug and gun trafficking in Oakland, but they also did it in partnership with the DEA,” Kirkpatrick said.
“I’m here because this operation greatly benefited the city of Oakland but it was through their partnership. So I speak for them we personally thank them greatly for their work on this operation.”
Kirkpatrick credited the department’s multiple crime-gathering strategies and access to technologies with help in successful outcomes Thursday.
“We have the technology that with every shell casing, and you might know we in Oakland pick up every shell casing involved in shootings. We enter it into a system we call the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, or NIBIN, that can link shell casings to actual crime guns,” Kirkpatrick said.
“In this particular operation, we have already linked several of these guns to murders and shootings in our city.”
Oakland police Capt. Ersie Joyner III, commander of the department’s Ceasefire Unit, said NIBIN is used to “recover casings, actual bullets as well as firearms, put them into a computer-generated system where they are taking three-dimensional pictures. This is a national database where at any time, law enforcement officers can take bullets, casings or firearms and link them to other cases.”
Joyner credited the database with cold-case and fresh-case arrests.
“This doesn’t necessarily mean that the people who possess these firearms are the people who committed the murders, but it is a fresh start in cases where Deputy Chief (Oliver) Cunningham and his team can follow up on active leads and bring closure to people who haven’t had it.”