September 2, 2010 | 12:19 AM | By

More arrests in Operation Street Sweeper

FILED UNDER: Corrections, Courts, Police, cellphone jamming, gang sweep, Jerry Brown, Nuestra Familia, Operation Street Sweeper, Pelican Bay, Salinas, Watsonville

Florida Department of Corrections

State and federal law enforcement agents yesterday released the names and charges of the alleged Nuestra Familia members who were arrested during Tuesday’s statewide gang sweep. Eight more people have since been arrested, bringing the number of suspects in custody to 46, with two unnamed people still at large.

A full list of the suspects arrested as of yesterday is posted below.

A few interesting subplots have emerged from the media’s take on “Operation Street Sweeper.” Large amounts of cash, 12 weapons, and large amounts of cocaine, methamphetamine were found during the arrests. Local station ABC 7‘s headline claimed the Operation had “busted up” Nuestra Familia.

Veteran reporters Julia Reynolds and Daniel Lopez, who have been covering Nuestra Familia and the Nortenos, an affiliated street gang for years, have the best on-the-ground pieces of reportage. The reputed heads of Nuestra Familia operations in Salinas and Watsonville were arrested during yesterday’s raids. 33-year-old Phillip Sparks, who police say controlled the Salinas “regiment,” was arrested in his home but federal agents also searched Forbidden XTC, a local “adult novelty store” he owns. Several thousand dollars in cash were seized at the store – Lopez’s story says the money was suspected to come from drug sales or “taxes” levied on gang subordinates. It is not clear whether Sparks was using his adult store as a front for criminal activity.

The San Francisco Chronicle revisited California Attorney General Jerry Brown’s proposal to jam cellphone transmissions at high-security prisons like Pelican Bay, where Nuestra Familia’s three top leaders are serving life terms in the isolation of the Secure Housing Unit. This year to date, six thousand smuggled cellphones have reportedly been discovered by prison guards, up from roughly 1,400 in 2007.

Brown claimed that these phones are a key conduit between Nuestra Familia’s prison leadership and the gangs it controls throughout California. The attorney general also said smart phones can allow gang members to make financial transactions and communicate securely with associates on the outside without a hitch. Before Brown gets his wish, the Federal Communications Commission will have to change existing laws that prohibit the jamming of cellphone signals. The Safe Prisons Communications Act, which would loosen these restrictions, passed the United States Senate in October 2009 but has not made it out of committee in the House of Representatives.