ARKANSAS, USA — Through an initiative called 'Operation Safe Streets', Arkansas State Police partnered with other police departments in the state to prevent street racing, speeding, criminal activity— and overall just to have more eyes on the capital city.
Months later, the operation has now come to a close, and state police said that it was a success.
“Operation Safe Streets ran from Mother’s Day until Labor Day this summer involving the Arkansas State Police, federal agencies, and local law enforcement partners,” said Captain Jeff Sheeler.
Sheeler explained that officers ran about 20 targeted patrols in the Pulaski County Area and they all proved to be successful.
“We made hundreds of arrests, both for criminal activity and driving behavior activity. We did this with zero injuries to either troopers or the suspects,” he said.
They caught more than 300 speeding violations and 80 percent of those speeding tickets written were for drivers that were going 16 miles per hour over the speed limit.
“It's not that we're out nickel and diming people for five over, these are significant speeds,” said Sheeler.
They also confiscated a lot of illegal drugs.
“We had we had significant federal seizures, we had significant marijuana seizures, we had significant cocaine seizures,” Sheeler described.
Putting a stop to street racing was a big key for the operation and Sheeler said that their effort showed.
"[We have] seen a significant downturn in the complaint calls that we've received on the racing-type behavior around the streets of Little Rock,” said Sheeler. “We've also seen a downturn in some of the pursuit activity, a slight downturn but a downturn nonetheless.”
The biggest surprise to Sheeler was the number of drunk drivers that were stopped during the operation since there were 73 DWIs made.
“They weren't necessarily holiday times that we were doing them. They were random, intentionally. We brought in extra troopers,” said Sheeler. “So, that was extra help and it indicated to me that drunk driving is a problem in the Pulaski County area.”
While the operation is over Sheeler said it doesn't mean they'll stop keeping a close eye.
“We know that we're making an impact. But we know that we're in the works, never done in that area. There's more to be done,” said Sheeler.
As for another operation like this, Captain Sheeler explained that it would happen again, but he just didn’t say exactly when.