Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig flanked by US Attorney McGregor Scott/ AP Photo
Yolo County DA Jeff Reisig had a big moment on Wednesday when he announced flanked by law enforcement leaders that the FBI had joined with “local and state law enforcement to disrupt coordinated criminal activity centered in Woodland.”
US Attorney McGregor Scott (yes the same McGregor Scott who investigated Picnic Day) yesterday announced the arrest “of 18 federal defendants on narcotics and weapons-related charges as part of a multi-agency law enforcement investigation into coordinated criminal activity in Woodland, California.”
He was joined by among others: FBI Special Agent in Charge Sean Ragan, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Secretary Scott Kernan, Woodland Chief of Police Luis Soler, Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig, and Yolo County Sheriff Ed Prieto.
According to a release, early on Wednesday, “a coalition of local, state and federal law enforcement officers conducted 69 searches pursuant to federal warrants and parole or probation search conditions at various locations throughout Northern California. Officers arrested 18 individuals on charges alleged in six separate federal indictments and one federal criminal complaints that were unsealed today.”
U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott stated, “Today’s operation is the result of a months-long endeavor involving federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to disrupt coordinated criminal activity that, although centered in Yolo County, spread to several other Northern California counties. This operation demonstrates how federal law enforcement can join forces with our state and 
local partners to make our communities safer and stop illegal guns and drugs from flooding our streets.”
“The FBI is committed to joining forces with our state and local partners to effectively combat the gang and drug-related violence that plagues our communities,” said Special Agent in Charge Sean Ragan of the FBI Sacramento Field Office. “Our shared goal is stopping gang violence, getting drugs and weapons off the streets, and helping to bring justice to the victims of crimes committed in our communities. Today’s arrests demonstrate the strength of successful law enforcement collaboration and highlight our shared commitment to the public we serve.”
They called this “Operation Silent Night.”
“Over the last several years, many of the defendants who were arrested today and their associates have plagued Yolo County with their criminal activity. This operation has helped to disable their organization at its most basic level and will hopefully have positive long term impacts on public safety,” said Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig.
At the press conference, he said, this was “a violent criminal street gang that has plagued much of the region and frankly reached across the nation.”
“Guns, drugs and violence are the trademarks of this gang, and members of this gang have used those guns and weapons to assault and kill their enemies and even to kill innocent civilians,” he said.
One of the poster children cases was the death of 41 year old Ronald Antonio, whose picture he held up. However, as the Vanguard has reported, at least one of the convicted defendants in that case is likely wrongly convicted.
While this sounds like an impressive operation, bear in mind that it bears striking similarities to the 2012 Operation Red Sash.
At that time, the Yolo Narcotic Enforcement Team, in a multi-jurisdiction effort led, by among others, the California Department of Justice, claimed 18 arrests which they said would disrupt a criminal gang network.
During the operation, which began in November 2011, YONET agents served 12 state arrest warrants and 16 state search warrants in the West Sacramento, Sacramento and Roseville areas. The investigation has resulted in 18 arrests, 4 guns, body armor, a stun gun, and drugs.
“Operation Red Sash” targeted mid-level to high-level members who were distributers of illegal narcotics, according to the release.
They write, “Several of the members identified in this investigation are probationers, six are on parole, and several are validated gang members from Norteño, Northern Riders or Broderick Boys criminal street gangs.”
Two years later in April of 214, the operation was an unmitigated failure.
But almost immediately, there seemed to be problems. Locals familiar with a lot of the people arrested told the Vanguard that most of the individuals were not active gang members. Some of them dealt drugs, but were mainly dealing to support their own personal habits.
Gang affiliations at best were old, in some cases going back decades. This was not the major case it was billed as.
In a multi-defendant trial, a jury basically cleared most of the co-defendants. The jurors would find all four co-defendants not guilty of any of the gang-related charges. The only charges upheld were against defendants Wayne Lewis and Robert Montoya for selling and conspiring to sell drugs to undercover YONET agents, Gary Richter and Ryan Bellamy.
When the Vanguard asked one juror why they decided on the acquittal, he said, “There was just not enough evidence to pin the gang enhancements to the drug sales, it left us with a gap for reasonable doubt.”
Because of the size of that case, the DA’s office was originally going to try it in three parts, they never got past the first group.
Will Operation Silent Night prove more successful than Operation Red Sash? Or is this simply an election year ploy by the DA to reinforce his gang fight credentials in a county of modest crime rates?
—David M. Greenwald reporting
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