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CLEVELAND -- May the Fourth has transitioned in recent years as the day to honor "The Force of the Star Wars" cinema series.
A real police force in northern Ohio marked last Tuesday with a milestone of its own. On May 4, according to a press release from the U.S. Marshals Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force, the members of the Canton division arrested Brannon Newell, 20, which marked the 50,000th arrest of the unit over its 18-year existence.
Newell was wanted by a Stark County court on rape and gross sexual imposition charges with a victim under the age of 6. Task force members arrested Newell without incident at a home in the 1600 block of Maple Avenue NE in Canton, the release said.
U.S. Marshal Pete Elliott said the task force was created in June 2003 in memory of Cleveland Patrolman Wayne Leon, who was killed in the line of duty by a fugitive on the run. Since the inception, the task force has grown from one division in Cleveland to eight across northern Ohio. The teams consist of more than 100 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies with more than 300 officers working together to locate and apprehend the most violent fugitives in the region, Elliot said.
"Violent crime and its perpetrators will always be one of the evil parts of our society, but the partnership between these law enforcement agencies and the community will be what continues to combat that evil," Elliott said. "The success of this task force is due to the unparalleled working relationship that has been built over the years with the local, state and federal law enforcement agencies and the incredible partnership into the communities we serve."
Over the past 18 years, the force has cleared more than 73,000 warrants and arrested more than 1,700 people for homicide, 4,600 for crimes related to sexual offenses, 7,700 for assaults, 4,200 for robbery, 3,600 for weapons offenses and 14,200 for narcotics related crimes. Additionally, members of the task force seized more than 2,200 firearms, more than 47,000 rounds of ammunition, nearly 900 kilograms of illegal narcotics and more than $4.4 million in U.S. currency.
In addition to arresting fugitives, the task force has initiated in late 2020 a unit that focuses solely on recovering missing and endangered children. In a special five-week operation to kick off the investigative unit, the force recovered or rescued 35 missing and endangered children between the ages of 13 and 18.
"A little more than 20 percent were tied to human-trafficking cases, and those cases were referred to the Human Trafficking Task Force in Cuyahoga County," Elliot stated.
Although the operation focused on the Cleveland area, children were located and recovered in Euclid, Akron, Mansfield, Columbus, Miami, Florida and other Ohio cities.