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Sr. Supt. Edward Broaster, Deputy Commander - Eastern Division
"We have cordoned off two hotbed areas that have been posing problems for the community for a long time now and ww3 went in there to search and clear some of the areas that we believe drugs and arms are being hidden."

Jules Vasquez
"Those in the community said they heard the news and what aired in the news is that there will be stepped up community activity from law enforcement but what they got was a predawn raid."

Sr. Supt. Edward Broaster
"Well Jules it's a two prong approach; while we will be stepping up our interdiction efforts, we also will be stepping up our community policing efforts and we will have officers visiting different neighborhoods, visiting with the community. Not a soul can say that they were hit or they were abused and I am sure that these operations that we conducted this morning, we don't have any complaint of brutality by no one."

Jules Vasquez
"A critic would say that you all are just trying to create a perception that law enforcement is active and crime is under control because this is what you all do, this is a knee jerk reaction whenever there is an upsurge in crime you swarm these hotbed neighborhoods, but by the time you swarm it all the high profile targets have absconded because they know that after a weekend like what we had the law enforcement storm is coming and they run go hide. So you end up just harassing the good citizens who have the misfortune of living in bad neighborhoods."

Sr. Supt. Edward Broaster
"This is no knee jerk reaction I can assure you and while the would be criminals knows that or expect that this surge would be coming they didn't had to get any press release on that - you are right, but this is in effect to prevent any escalation and any retaliation and when you have an escalation like this you have to have an upsurge to deescalate the problems that poses threat to the safety of residents and other communities."

Jules Vasquez
"However, you will agree that after a weekend like what we have, all these high value targets aren't just sitting around waiting at home for you all to show up. They go into hiding."

Sr. Supt. Edward Broaster
"And while they do that Jules, we have simultaneous operations outside of the city targeting those sanctuaries that know that these criminals flock to when they know that the surge or the intensive interdiction efforts is stepped up in the city."

Jules Vasquez
"But at the same time we know that most effective crime interdiction or a lot of it depends on intelligence and it appears that while there are more boots, more vehicles, more personnel on the ground, I am not sure that is match in the effectiveness of intelligence, the gathering and use of intelligence."

Sr. Supt. Edward Broaster
"No intelligence can be provided to tell you when someone get psycho and decide today I am going to shoot John. We are working diligent to improve our intelligence mechanism. The name for this operation is "Not in my city" Jules and we would want the community to take this as theirs too "Not in my city" you are going to commit murder; "not in my city" you are going to commit burglary; "Not in my city you are going to be stealing; "Not in my city" you are going to be public drinking; "Not in my city" you will ride a bike without bell - it's a message we want the community to on to send to the criminals and to law breakers "Not in my city."

Jules Vasquez
"Is this just a one day thing or will be a continuing effort?"

Sr. Supt. Edward Broaster
"I am sure you will be taking stock as to how this play out and after this I will not give away what our intentions are but I am sure that the community will feel safe that we have the numbers and we have the officers out there doing what they are supposed to be doing and that is to protect the law abiding citizens in general."

Police wouldn't say how long the operation would continue so as to maintain the element of surprise, but, safe to say, it wasn't just a one morning affair. We'll keep monitoring it.