It was 4 a.m. Thursday and Theresa Stoop - the special agent in charge of Baltimore's ATF division - was standing in M&T Bank Stadium with a microphone in hand, looking at about 340 agents and officers sitting in the seats before her.
A core group of them, along with attorneys from the state and federal prosecutors' offices, had spent the past 17 months investigating dozens of suspected city gang members, considered a violent organization of Bloods, and this was the day they planned to take them down.
The agents were tense but excited, wearing their bullet-proof vests.
Stoop outlined the mission. They had warrants to execute in nearly 50 locations and just a few hours to do it. Get home safely, she said, and she released her team.
By the end of the day, nearly 40 people - including two Californians - were arrested on drug conspiracy and racketeering charges, with most of the federal defendants making their first appearances in Baltimore's U.S. District Court. Those charged at the state level would begin appearing in court Friday, held on millions of dollars in bail.
It was the culmination of thousands of hours of work for the area's Violent Crime Impact Team, which is led by agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in conjunction with the Baltimore Police Department, as well as the U.S. and state's attorneys' offices.
Collectively, they interviewed scores of informants, sifted through months of wiretap recordings, conducted surveillance on myriad suspects and sought frequent court approvals.
It all started in January 2008, when information about certain Bloods gang activity in the Baltimore area made its way to the violent crime team, a sort of standing committee of 13 (half ATF agents, half city police) with a charge to perform long-term investigations that root out entire organizations.
PDL - the local Pasadena Denver Lanes set of the Bloods gang - was increasingly associated with local crimes. The team took notice and began compiling data, putting more effort into it as more information came forward. They questioned Bloods as they were picked up for other crimes and documented their daily operations.
Once team members started seeing repetitive actions - the same kinds of beatings, robberies and drug dealing - from PDL, they put the facts together, calling a meeting with prosecutors and others in June to form strategies.
