Street Crimes Unit: Police Say Spike in Drugs Related to Gang Activity

The metro street crimes unit launched almost one year ago and police have been keeping busy.

It’s no doubt the street crimes unit is staying busy.

Just last week, six people were arrested during a raid on a south Fargo home.

As heroin spikes in our community, a gang connection has often come hand in hand and Fargo Police are doing what they can to stop both.

If you’re in a gang or have any relation to gang members, Fargo Police want to make one thing clear.
 
“If you come to Fargo and we know about it, we’re going to find you and talk to you,” says Lt. Shannon Ruziska with Fargo PD.
 
Law enforcement agencies from across the metro are working together to keep gangs out.

Because with gangs, usually comes drugs.
 
“It’s almost certain there’s a gang connection of those drugs coming into our community,” says Ruziska.
 
Police say yesterday’s heroin bust is likely connected to gang activity and thanks to the work of 26 officers, that bust happened in record speed.
 
“That’s great police work if you can do that in that amount of time, this could have taken weeks for them to figure out and by that time several other deaths would have happened,” says Fargo Mayor, Tim Mahoney.
 
The task force is currently tracking over 100 gangs and that’s why Fargo police say it becomes difficult to zero in on just one.
 
“So we don’t have a big gang or a one gang we’re looking at, we’ve got a lot of them,” says Ruziska.
 
But police aren’t backing down.

Just from January to February of this year, nine gang members were arrested.

Twenty people associated with gang activity were also arrested.

Drugs including meth, marijuana, cocaine, LSD, prescriptions pills, ecstasy, and heroin were also seized in that time.
 
“If gang members are bringing heroin into our community, we’re going to do what we can to stop that either through arrests.  Somehow convince them this isn’t a friendly place for them to deal that here,” says Ruziska.

Lt. Ruziska also says 23 new gang members are in our community.

For police, these stats are just another reminder why the task force is in place.