Sheriff’s Department gives update on gang crackdown
We are getting new information following an extensive raid by the Riverside County Sheriffs Department on a local gang a few weeks ago in Coachella.
The Sheriffs Department orchestrated the Feb 25 cracked down on the Varrio Coachella Rifa gang.
Twenty five people were arrested and deputies recovered guns, drugs, and money.
Since the raid all of the people arrested are already back on the streets.
Members of the Sheriff’s Department met with city leaders to talk about the progress of the gang injunction.
“A lot of times folks are arrested and booked. Sometimes they are able to post bail, or they are sight released because the crime is a misdemeanor. These suspects are still going through the criminal justice process and will have their day in court,” said RCSD Capt. Andrew Shouse who is also the chief of the Coachella Police Department.
Recent changes in the law making some felonies crimes misdemeanors and overcrowding in the jails are making it harder to handle gangs.
“We need to ensure that people who break the law know what the consequences are, and so when there isn’t a deterrent, when there isn’t rooms in the jail it sends a weird message to them. It sends a message that they can commit crimes and not have face any consequences,” said Steven Hernandez, mayor of Coachella.
The county is currently building the East Valley Detention Center in Indio. When completed, the new jail will add more than 1,000 beds to the overall detention center capacity of the county.
“The county of Riverside is working hard to build that facility when that facility opens up it’s going to give us additional bed space to take some of these folks off the street that are out here victimizing and terrorizing the community,” said Shouse.
The Sheriff’s Department says the raid in February is just a small step to eliminate dangerous gangs. And it’s going to years of work to get the job done.
The East Valley Detention Center is schedule to be up and running by December of 2017.
