FBI San Diego arrests 76 during ‘Summer Heat’ operation focused on nationwide violent crime

FBI personnel in San Diego made 76 arrests during a roughly three-month operation dubbed “Summer Heat,” the agency announced Monday.

All FBI field offices participated in the nationwide operation between June 24 and Sept. 20. The agency described the initiative as a “nationwide effort to crush violent crime” and said that as part of “Summer Heat,” FBI personnel seized more than 2,280 weapons and nearly 100,000 pounds of cocaine.

Agency officials in San Diego provided very few details about the local arrests made during the operation, which resulted in 8,629 arrests across the country.

The FBI’s San Diego field office said in a news release that as part of the initiative, agents arrested “a violent fugitive from Mexico” who is suspected of supplying more than one ton of drugs — including methamphetamine, fentanyl and cocaine — to distribution cells in San Diego and Los Angeles. “Summer Heat” also resulted in agents in San Diego seizing five weapons, more than 235 pounds of cocaine and more than 163 pounds of methamphetamine, according to the news release.

“The San Diego Field Office works diligently every day towards our mission of protecting the American public,” Special Agent in Charge Mark Dargis said in a statement. “The results of the FBI’s Summer Heat operations are proof that surging resources with our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners can, and did, make a significant impact on violent crime in our region. FBI San Diego will continue to aggressively investigate violent criminals while leveraging all available resources to keep our communities safe.”

On the San Diego field office’s Facebook post accompanying the news release, the agency included photos that it had previously posted in recent months showing FBI agents armed with long guns and dressed in tactical gear detaining three individuals. In those photos, the FBI personnel were accompanied by officers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, or ERO.

In the original Facebook post accompanying one of the photos from early August, the FBI wrote that its “Homeland Security Team assisted our ERO San Diego partners in the arrest of two alleged sexual predators and a violent offender as part of our ongoing fight to crush violent crime and keep our communities safe.” In another of the original posts from Sept. 29, more than a week after the “Summer Heat” operation was said to have ended, the FBI said it had worked with ICE ERO to arrest “a documented gang member with prior convictions for assault with a deadly weapon, witness intimidation, and child abuse.”

In a statement from FBI San Diego, the agency said its summer crime initiative was not focused on immigration enforcement. “Operation Summer Heat targeted the most violent and dangerous criminals in our community, and if arrested subjects happened to be out of status, then we coordinated with ICE ERO on potential removal,” the agency said in its statement.

It was unclear if the individuals seen being arrested in the photos were charged criminally or put in civil immigration proceedings.