Wed, 11/23/2011 - 07:50 
jsottile
MORE THAN 100 PEOPLE ARRESTED IN KINGSTON DRUG SWEEP
By Freeman staff
KINGSTON, N.Y. — Police arrested about 100 people on Saturday, mostly on drug-related charges, in a citywide sweep.
Ulster County District Attorney Holley Carnright said the sweep, though resulting primarily in drug arrests, was an effort to end gang activity in Kingston.
At least 44 of those arrested were gang members, police said: 36 Bloods, three Crips and five members of the Blackouts.
Carnright said the investigation that culminated with Saturday’s arrests grew out of the 2010 gang-related killing in Kingston of government witness Charles “C.J.” King by members of Sex, Money, Murder, a subset of the bloods.
Saturday’s arrests, part of an effort dubbed “Operation Clean Sweep,” were announced during a press conference today in Kingston City Court. Speakers at the event included Kingston Police Chief Egidio Tinti, city Mayor Shayne Gallo, Ulster County Sheriff Paul Van Blarcum, county Undersheriff Frank Faluotico, Carnright and state police Maj. Wayne Olsen.
Most of the arrests occurred after 4 a.m. today, though some of the suspects were taken into custody last night, authorities said.
The arrests primarily were in Kingston; a few were in surrounding communities.
Most of the charges were related to the possession and/or sale of heroin and crack cocaine. Two guns and 16 cars also were seized.
Authorities said 14 people being sought in the operation still are at large.
All those arrested on Saturday were being held in the Ulster County Jail, police said.
"The qualities of a good prosecutor are as elusive and as impossible to define as those which mark the gentleman. And those who need to be told would not understand it anyway. A sensitiveness to fair play and sportsmanship is perhaps the best protection against the abuse of power, and the citizens' safety lies in the prosecutor who tempers zeal with human kindness, who seeks truth and not victims, who serves the law and not factional purposes, and who approaches his task with humility."
– Robert H. Jackson, Late Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
