Police arrest 29 on drug and gun related charges

Somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 percent of drug and burglary-type crimes in Kilgore may have been relieved yesterday, when Kilgore Police Department joined a county-wide effort to rid the streets of 29 individuals associated with drug and firearm trafficking.

Those arrested in the sweep were affiliated with two longview drug rings; the Davis Street Gang and the twelfth Street Crips.

"Anyone who chooses to be involved in this kind of activity needs to know that we will do whatever it takes to take them off the streets," J.B. McCaleb, Longview police chief, said.

Yesterday's round up was the result of an 87-count super indictment involving federal drug and firearm charges.

Kilgore Police and other agencies were on the street by 7 a.m. Yesterday in an effort to round up of the indicted, with 11 of them coming out of Kilgore.

Ronnie Moore, Kilgore director of public safety, said the department seeks two more individuals on related charges.

"Theses arrests are significant in scope and magnitude," Rebbecca Gregory, Texas Eastern District U.S. Attorney, said."So are the problems that plague our community."

Maxey Cerliano, Gregg County sheriff, thanked all of the agencies involved.

"What we saw today was the culmination of months and months of cooperation between many law enforce agencies," Cerliano said. "If not for the relationship between the agencies, we would not have been able to take these violent offenders off the streets."

Most of the Kilgore arrests were from the northwest area of the city. Moore said these offenders take up a lot of man power and the city had been waiting on the indictments for months.

Moore said many of those picked up yesterday were not part of the Longview-based gangs, but did indeed run in the same circles.