The Bradley County Sheriff’s Office, in conjunction with federal and state agencies, completed a warrant roundup Saturday that targeted neighborhood criminal activity.
Agencies providing assistance were the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the U.S. Marshall’s Service and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
They are participants in Project Safe Neighborhoods, an initiative seeking to reduce gang activity, illegal drug use and residential theft.
Warrants were taken from an estimated 5,000 cases in Bradley County where previous attempts to arrest the defendant were unsuccessful.
The final numbers are being tabulated, but as the week long effort concluded at least 100 felony and misdemeanor warrants had been served or cleared.
According to Lt. Eric Watson of the Court Services Division, the most serious charges were robbery, aggravated assault, aggravated burglary, possession of drugs, failure to pay child support, and fugitive warrants.
Sheriff Tim Gobble said it is important to take steps to reduce the backlog of unserved warrants.
He said, “This is a problem I tackled when I took office. Through a redistribution of department resources we have been able to arrest many of these individuals. The problem we have encountered is that many of these people are transient and have moved without leaving forwarding addresses.”
Alan Ledford, grant coordinator for the sheriff’s office, worked with the other agencies to finalize details of the roundup.
Sheriff Gobble said the department will continue an emphasis on finding these individuals and getting them before a judge. As these cases are adjudicated they will bring additional revenue to the county through fines and court costs, it was stated.
Sheriff Gobble expressed his appreciation to each of the federal and state agencies for assistance during the roundup.