"A second round of saturation patrols has resulted in nearly 60 arrests, bringing the total to more than 100 arrests in two days, according to Prince George's County Police." Wow!

Kudows to Chief of Police Mark Magaw. The concentrated effort to take the bad guys off the street appearsto be working. For awhile it appeared that law breakers could operate with impunity in the county without fear of arrest. Budgets are limited and resoures must be allocated to make as much impact as possible. The shifting of assets from place to place periodically seems to be the best plan for keeping the peace in the County.

While reducing violent crime is necessary and a praiseworthy task especially in P.G. county, I would like to know what the other 31 arrests were for. Many of these arrests are for petty misdemeanors that were and ARE made possible through tactics such as racial profiling. Lets flood a low income area with agents, where the residents are living in poverty, have a basic lack of social services and health care, and a horrendous education system. I bet if we took the same number of police and put them in Potomac they'd end up arresting more people! Don't even get me started on embedding Feds in the county....

I'm not sure I care what the other 31 arrests were for. If they weren't breaking the law, they wouldn't have been arrested. The issue is that the majority of the murders were occurring in a very small part of the county. Are you suggesting it is wrong of the the police to increase their coverage there? And i'm curious, if the vast majority of people in a given area are of a certain race, how is it racial profiling if they get stopped by police? I mean, assuming the percentage of people of each race that are stopped is somewhere close to the percentage of people of those races in the general population of that area?

What I am basically saying is that its pretty ridiculous to justify a 'crime sweep' in a certain area due to high crime. I understand the rationale of continuous murders, homicides etc. But these 'sweeps' have been going on for quite some time, in DC also, and if the purpose of the sweeps is to stop violent crime, yet you arrest more people for non-violent than for violent crime you have an issue. Instead of spending my tax dollars on more militarization of the police, I'd rather they go adequate social services, education, and infrastructure, something that would really affect crime in the long term.

oh yes, how ridiculous. Wait, next time there's a crime spike, we should pull out all the police and send in counselors. Yeah. THAT will solve the problem. I fail to see the logic in that.

I didn't say anything close to'sending in counselors' after a crime spike. I fail to see the logic in thinking that only temporary solutions such as embedding federal agents with county police will ever solve the problem. Give these people opportunity, education, and an increased quality of life and they won't participate in certain activities to pay the rent.

From what I understand all of the officers patrolling the streets during that uptick in patrol were PG county officers, or officers from other municipalities within pg county. The media did say there were federal officers supplementing the department, but as far as I understand, they were all used internally. I don't suppose there's any way for you to know that though.

And while I'm sure some of the arrests were for more minor crimes, there's a good chance that at least some of those people arrested for these things were up to other things, but the minor crimes were all that could be proven. I wonder how many had "never been arrested before" and how many will never be arrested again.

Alex > What makes you think those people weren't given the opportunity to be better people or the opportunity to get an education. Is it my fault, or your fault or maybe it's pgcoresidents fault that "They" decided to not stay in school and get a FREE EDUCATION, courtesy of yours and my tax dollars. Who's fault is it "They" decided to resort to crime rather than going and getting a job. And pleeeeeeze don't blame it on their ethnicity or race, that excuse is about worn out and just doesn't hold water anymore.

If you do not think that racism or classism plays no part in 'todays society' then I suggest you re-examine your life sir.