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Kearns • Salt Lake County law enforcement officials say they want to send a clear message regarding violent gang activity in the valley — it won't be tolerated.
"If you commit violent crime in our community, it will be addressed, it will be investigated and it will be prosecuted from the day of the event to the day of sentencing," said Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill at a news conference here Friday. "That is a commitment we are making to each other and to this community."
To make good on their commitment, a multi-agency army of SWAT officers and detectives simultaneously raided five Salt Lake Valley homes Friday morning in connection with a gang-related park shootout last week.
Gill said since entering office, fighting gang violence in the community has become a top priority.
Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder said more than 150 police officers — including 100 SWAT team members — executed search warrants at about 5 a.m. on four residences in Kearns and another in West Jordan to put a stop to months of escalating rival gang violence. Seven people were arrested prior to the raid — five juveniles ranging in age from 14 to 17, and two adults. However, not all are believed to be involved in the actual shooting. Police say two were actually at the shooting and one adult was participating in gang activity, while the other had illegally re-entered the country.
"When people are standing in our parks and shooting at each other, it simply will not be tolerated," Winder said at the press conference. "For them to walk out in broad daylight at a soccer field full of 9-, 10- and 14-year-olds in front of 150 witnesses, pull out firearms and start blazing away at each other — this has reached a level that I think demonstrates a new commitment to violence," Winder said.
Police hope the prosecution of individuals will break the cycle of the violent gangs in the area.
"We believe it has literally cut the head off of this particular problem," Winder said.
It isn't known if those arrested are leaders in the gangs, but "they are the most demonstratively violent within the sects," Winder said.
The raids were a culmination of information developed since a gang-related shooting in May up to a recent investigation into a July 12 gun battle between the same two groups of suspected Norteños and Soreños gang members at Mountain Man Park, near 4900 S. Heath Ave. (5150 West). A 17-year-old boy, an alleged Soreños gang member, was shot twice in the leg during that incident after he allegedly fired at Norteños gang members. One returned fire, striking the boy in the leg. Police say a 14-year-old Soreños member then grabbed the gun from the fallen boy and began chasing and shooting after the Norteños. Days after the shooting police learned there were also several assaults involving knives used between the gangs.
Children were playing in the park where the July 12 shooting took place a short distance away, but no other injuries occurred.
Unified Police spokesman Shane Manwaring said SWAT personnel from the Department of Public Safety, West Jordan, South Salt Lake, Salt Lake City and UPD were involved in the arrests.
Representatives of Metro Gang Unit, Violent Crimes and Special Victims Unit of the Federal Marshals Office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement also assisted with the raid.
On Friday, neighbors of suspected gang members watched as police moved in quickly to conduct their raids and secure the scenes.
Elizabeth Starr, who lives across the street from one Kearns home hit by SWAT on Friday near 5300 W. Crockett Drive (5115 South), said the Latino residents of the home had moved in four months ago and seemed to be "nice people.
"They are way better than the last people that lived there," she said. "[They were] very nice and well-mannered people ... Sometimes it is the people you least expect, I guess."
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