Your browser doesn't support audio playback.
For the second year in a row, law enforcement agencies in West Virginia are joining a three-month crackdown on violent crime and drug trafficking.
The FBI’s Eastern Panhandle Drug and Violent Crime Task Force – along with multiple West Virginia agencies – announced Operation Summer Heat 2.0 at a press conference in Martinsburg Tuesday.
U.S. Attorney Matthew Harvey said crime increases sharply in the warm summer months. The crackdown, he said, is a targeted effort that puts far more agents on the ground to address violent crime and leaders of drug trafficking operations.
“Either prior to summer or during summer, you have to increase your efforts because you have more of an issue and a problem in the community. And if there’s more activity, then there’s more opportunity,” Harvey said.
On hand for the press conference in Martinsburg, FBI Director Kash Patel said the goal is to get dangerous criminals off the streets.
“Every violent offender, every gangbanger and every terrorist will get the due process that the Constitution affords them because that is what this country demands, and we will give it to them,” Patel said. “And then we will work through the court process and make sure we put them down and send them away for as long as we possibly can so they never infiltrate our streets again.”
Last year’s operation across multiple states including West Virginia yielded more than 8,600 arrests, 2,300 firearms and thousands of pounds of cocaine and fentanyl seized.