The Broward Sheriff’s Office arrested over 130 people in Pompano Beach over the last six weeks, officials announced Wednesday, part of a total crackdown on a section of the city where rampant gun violence and has left residents feeling hopeless and desperate for peace.
The arrests, all made under “Operation Trigger Lock,” came months after a March meeting where city commissioners criticized the Broward Sheriff’s Office for not doing enough to stop the violence.
Shortly after the March meeting, Sheriff Gregory Tony met with residents over what they need to try to stem the tide of shootings, not just through law enforcement, but through changes to the physical environment and opportunities that could help lift people in the community out of poverty and away from crime.
“We come out, we risk our lives, we chase down the bad people, but yet it becomes cyclical because there’s other community-based issues that are not being resolved,” Tony said at a news conference announcing the arrests Wednesday.
Those issues include convenience stores where shootings are rampant and a lack of educational opportunities and jobs that leave some young people feeling they have nowhere to turn but crime.
“These young men, they have no means to make a living so they resort to crime,” Tony Sands, a local football coach and community activist, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “It needs to be a partnership between the school system, sheriff and the community. The school system needs to train students for life and bring back classes like home ec, woodshop and mechanics. These classes are being taken away; these young men don’t have those opportunities.”
Operation Trigger Lock began on April 16, the same day as the community meeting over gun violence. Over the last several weeks, northwest Pompano Beach has at times looked like a war zone. Armored tanks rolled through the streets with deputies in tow wearing helmets and carrying assault rifles. Deputies worked alongside a series of other organizations: the Broward and U.S. State Attorney’s Offices, police departments in Davie, Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Lauderhill, and Plantation, and at least four federal agencies.
The operation involved two phases, Tony said, gathering information and then implementing search warrants and making arrests. Much of the first phase relied on gang informants, social media sites like Instagram and online “gang forums” where people discuss shootings and street culture, sometimes bragging about their own involvement.
The unmistakable presence of the deputies in military-style attire has resulted in increased online “chatter” that can help deter violence, Tony said. Pictures on a poster board in the center of the room during Wednesday’s news conference showed exchanges on Reddit forums discussing BSO’s crackdown.
“Sheriff Tony tryna put down fr,” one person wrote in response to an Instagram video of an unmarked tank with the caption, “A regular day in Pompano Beach Florida.”
Another person replied, “Used to just be unmarked cars riding around now they making it obvious as f***.”
Ultimately, the operation resulted in 132 arrests, 14 search warrants executed, the recovery of 38 guns, and confiscating drugs including cocaine, fentanyl, alpha PVP, oxycodone and heroin, BSO said in a release. Five people were charged with murder, and three were documented gang members. Other charges include armed robberies and drug trafficking.
It wasn’t immediately clear how many of those arrested were directly connected with the gun violence that has unfolded over the last few months. The number of homicide victims dropped from four in March to zero in April, according to a report from the Sheriff’s Office to city commissioners, though some crimes, like robberies, went up. The report for May was not yet available.
Tony emphasized that the series of arrests are not the end. Deputies will continue to patrol the area at a “high tempo,” he said, because that is what residents want. But they also want more than that.
“The folks in these communities have to live with it every day, more than we do,” Tony said. “They’re the ones that’s pushing their kids away from the front window because there’s bullets flying. They’re the ones who can’t sit in their living rooms anymore because there’s a threat of some gang violence occurring down the street … I want to see the county government respond and I want to see the city officials respond, because if not, as I said, we’re going to be right back here in a matter of months.”
Two city commissioners, Andrea McGee and Alison Fournier, were also in attendance Wednesday. They praised the crackdown and said they were working on the other areas that fall under their responsibility like code enforcement, which could punish and even shut down businesses that have become hot spots for shootings.
“We will do whatever we can to crack down on these stores,” said Fournier, who rode along with deputies during the operation and walked through some of the community stores herself. “They cannot have them as hangouts and drive-by’s.”
Another theme raised Wednesday was that of development. In Pompano Beach, economic disparities are pronounced. Tony and commissioners talked about encouraging development in the area to help improve living conditions, though gentrification could also displace residents.
McGee said that she hoped to bring in businesses that would offer jobs to people who already live in the community and give them a chance at upward mobility.
“I think having those types of opportunities are what make it where you can either come back to the community you are from or at least stay there and really grow up there,” McGee said. “… I think if we can attract that type of investment into our cities, that’s where we can finally really start to make traction with it.”
In addition to education, Sands said residents themselves also have to work more with deputies.
“As a community we have to do just as much as they are doing,” he said of BSO, “which is communicating with law enforcement. It takes both sides to conquer this epidemic that is taking over our communities. It takes the communities and law enforcement working together.”