The importance of their mission couldn’t be clearer, he said.
Minutes earlier, the district attorney got word that a gang shooting had occurred.
Officers had two rules when enforcing each city’s respective curfew laws: Don’t pick up anyone after 12:30 a.m., and don’t bring in anyone younger than 8.
The latter rule may seem surprising, but during a similar, smaller-scale operation in May with Anaheim police, officers found a pair of 6- and 7-year-old siblings on the street, said Farrah Emami, spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office. Officers simply took the children home in that case, she said.
About 10 p.m.
Maybe it was the drizzle earlier in the day, or the chilly weather, but Costa Mesa gang officers met an unusually quiet night in the city. It looked encouraging early for police when they stopped a 16-year-old boy on his bike. He had a bottle of stolen vodka, a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of pills with him.
For a while, that was it. Costa Mesa gang Det. David Sevilla continually found the city’s busier gang hubs quiet.
“All you hear is crickets,” he said, as he and probation officer Jessica Johnson walked the neighborhood off Mission Drive and La Salle Avenue.
One pass through an alley off Valencia Street turned up nothing but closed garages and lit bedroom windows. The alley was busier, though, on a second pass about 11:30 p.m.
A group of three walking away caught Johnson and Sevilla’s eye.
The two officers approached and stopped the youthful-looking group. It was two men and a girl. Though none had IDs, when their names were run through the Police Department’s system the check revealed that the men were 18 and 20 years old.
