Federal law enforcement led a massive drug crackdown in Los Angeles’ Skid Row neighborhood on Thursday, executing 28 arrest warrants and 44 search warrants in an operation dubbed Operation Save Skid Row. More than 100 law enforcement vehicles took part, with arrests targeting members of multiple gangs, including the Main Street Crips, Grape Street/Raymond Avenue Crips, and the Pueblo Bishop Bloods.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli told Fox News Digital that state and local police worked well with federal agents on the operation, but said California’s elected officials are the real obstacle to cleaning up the neighborhood.
“Unfortunately, states like California have totally watered down their laws, their criminal justice laws. They’ve also emptied their prisons and closed prisons, so effectively, there’s not much of a deterrence on the state side. No one faces any serious consequences on the state side,” Essayli said.
He drew a clear line between law enforcement on the ground and politicians in Sacramento and Washington.
“We work really well with our local law enforcement partners,” he said. “Local law enforcement isn’t the problem. It’s more the governor, it’s the legislature, it’s these loud-mouth federal, you know, Congress members who all they care about is attacking the administration, attacking the president.”
Essayli credited Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for approving LAPD participation in Thursday’s operation.
He reserved sharper words for critics who have pushed to scale back police funding and powers.
“This is a climate in which you have people right now trying to defund the police. You have people trying to disarm the LAPD, and those people are on the side of criminals,” he said. “Anyone who’s calling for disarming the police is on the side of the drug dealers that we arrested today, they’re lunatics.”
At a news conference Thursday, Essayli tied the drug enforcement push directly to the visible suffering on Skid Row’s streets.
“We are no longer going to have open-air drug markets in the United States, let alone on Skid Row. And that is the reason you see so many homeless people who are experiencing psychotic episodes, who are unwell, they aren’t seeking help, it’s because you have people, like the drug dealers we are arresting today, keeping them addicted and taking their public assistance money to pay for their drugs,” he said.
