Nation Business-Operation Blue Knight

@chicago tribune
The Chicago Police and FBI began a roundup of about 100 members of the Traveling Vice Lords street gang November 18 2010 following an investigation launched about two years ago, dubbed Operation Blue Knight, involved wiretaps on gang members’ telephones and has led to drug, weapons and other charges, sources said. None of the suspects is charged with a violent crime, although members of the Traveling Vice Lords, one of the city's largest gangs operating on the West Side, have been thought responsible for a number of high-profile crimes, including the 2007 home invasion robberies of two NBA players and the shooting deaths of Chicago Det. Robert Soto and his female companion.

Authorities would not discuss whether any one incident launched the investigation, although they acknowledged it was the culmination of an investigation sparked by the 2008 unsolved murder of an off-duty Chicago Police officer who was killed on the West Side. Robert Soto was sitting in an SUV along with a state Department of Children and Family Services supervisor, Kathryn Romberg, as they outside her home on Aug. 13, 2008. Police had charged alleged gang member Jason Austin with the murders, but prosecutors later dropped the case due to lack of evidence and problems with witnesses' statements. Austin, known as "J Rock," and six others later sued police in federal court, alleging detectives threatened and beat witnesses to implicate Austin. Austin is in custody at Western Illinois Correctional Center, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections Web site. He was found guilty in November 2009 for possession of a controlled substance and was sentenced to three years in prison, court records show.


On Aug. 17, members of the Traveling Vice Lords and other gangs were part of a sit-down with Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis and other federal and local law enforcement authorities at the Garfield Park Conservatory. The gang members were told that police would target them and their entire gang if one of its members was involved in a murder.

On Oct. 26, police announced that they kept their promise, making more than 60 arrests, mostly for felonies ranging from murder to drug and gun crimes, after 18-year-old Anthony Carter was allegedly gunned down Aug. 31 by Black Souls member Sharod Pierce near Garfield Park. Most of those arrests were of Black Souls members, police said.

Cynthia Yates, spokeswoman for the FBI, said today that "we've made some arrests as part of an ongoing investigation" involving state, federal and local law enforcement. She declined to provide further details, saying the criminal complaint in the case remained sealed.