WASHINGTON – Ten years to the day after allegedly raping a 14-year-old girl, a California man was arrested in a roundup of fugitives that law enforcement officials say snared more than 1,100 sex offenders.
About a dozen of those arrested were reportedly connected with Snohomish County cases.
The concentrated search for people wanted for federal, state and local crimes “targeted the worst of the worst,” Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Thursday at a news conference announcing the results of “Operation Falcon II.”
Authorities arrested 9,037 people April 17 to last Sunday in a 27-state dragnet led by the U.S. Marshals Service and timed to coincide with National Victims Rights Week. Among those apprehended were 1,102 people wanted for violent sex crimes or failure to register as sex offenders.
No other single law enforcement operation had resulted in the capture of as many suspected sex offenders, the Justice Department said. The arrests came mainly in states west of the Mississippi River, and in Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Gonzales has directed investigators to focus on sex crimes as part of his effort to call attention to child pornography and other crimes against children.
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