How does Operation Total Focus work? A ride-along with Savannah Police opens a window

At 8 p.m. on Feb. 24, about 50 officers, mostly from the Savannah Police Dept., were huddled in a conference room at 3401 Edwin St. Cpt. Clarence Few and Lt. Brian Spence stood before a whiteboard with the words “items,” “locations,” “drugs,” “sales” and” “$” written in dry erase marker.

Few, SPD's Central Precinct Commander, thanked the officers for being there and made a side note that encouraged officers to see the one-act play about Anne Frank and Emmett Till that was showing around town.

“Everybody here has done Total Focus before, correct?” asked Few. “So, this isn’t anybody’s first rodeo. Just remember, take care of yourself, take care of your job, take care of each other.

“Significant incidents? Let us know. Any issues? Let us know. Back up your partners. If somebody runs, there’s two people running? Go with your partner. Don’t split up."

And then, the second night of Operation Total Focus was underway.

What was Operation Total Focus like up close?

Operation Total Focus is a combined state and local law enforcement intelligence-based policing effort intended to target known high crime areas to get guns, drugs and criminals off the street, according to the SPD. SPD spokesman Neil Penttila said that Chief Lenny Gunther has conducted about 12 similar operations.

It's rare for civilians to get a glimpse inside such an operation, but I was invited to ride-along and Spence paired me with Officer Christopher Decker. And from 8 a.m. to midnight, I witnessed one arrest and multiple no-shows.

Before joining SPD in July 2022, Decker served with the Fallon (NV) Police Department for eight years. He worked a few operations and said he “loved” them. He wants to move up the ranks ― be deputized by the Bureau of Alcohol of Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) ― but doesn’t want to be a detective because it’s too time-consuming, he said. He has two children, a 16-year-old son and a younger daughter, and doesn’t want to miss time with them.

Before long, we stopped in the Tabernacle Temple Glory of God parking lot to “stage,” get information for the planned arrest, including the name of the person, their address and their suspected crime. Huddled in a circle in the parking lot, a State Dept. of Community Supervision (DCS) officer asked if anyone knew the first target.

“We’re looking for drugs,” said the DCS officer. “It’s the grandma's house. We don’t know if he sells at the grandma’s house. He might be selling at the girlfriend’s house; he just had another baby, a second baby momma, so if he not there, he probably at the girlfriend’s house.”

Another officer then provided directions: Decker, along with two other officers, would be taking the front, while other officers would be taking the rear and sides.

“How old’s the grandma?” the officer asked the DCS officer.

“Sixties.”

“Young enough to be complicit,” an SPD officer responded, and the officers laughed.

We hopped in the car and started driving ― lights on and sirens off ― to the location. When we arrived at the residence, I stayed in the car, observing the officers’ operation from a short distance. Quickly, all the officers converged on one car and two people, a pregnant woman and a man, got out. Searching the man, the officers found a baggie containing a white substance. After about 10 to 15 minutes of wrangling, three officers managed to maneuver the man into the back of a squad car.

At the next staging area, an SPD officer addressed what he saw as an issue: 15 officers didn’t need to converge on one man. He is a popular figure in the neighborhood and allies could have swarmed the area when they heard of their friend’s arrest. The officers needed to spread out, cover more space.

Another officer had a question. The man was trying to get back into the house, the officer said, and yelled at someone in the house to go into a room and hide a firearm. In that case, asked the officer, could they conduct a terry frisk? A terry frisk, also known as a terry stop, allows the police to briefly detain a person based on reasonable suspicion of involvement in criminal activity.

Yes, they could, the other officer responded. Another officer noted that a loaded handgun was found in a room.

“We didn’t know,” said the officer. “I was just gonna go terry frisk him. But luckily, you stopped me. Because it made sense to me at the time. I should have asked y’all first.”

Every stop teaches lessons.

The next residence was inside a gated community. Once we arrived at the townhouse, a man answered the door, but insisted he wasn’t who they were looking for. At first, the SPD officers weren’t sure and double-checked the computer system, but were eventually convinced.

We went straight to the next residence. Over Decker’s radio, I could hear an officer say the suspect could be “a bit of a firecracker” and identified him as a member of a gang.

“This’ll be fun,” said Decker. Shortly after, an officer warned of crossfire.

As we pulled into a trailer park, I heard one resident standing outside say, “That’s 5-0.” With our lights off, we slowed down to a stop outside a trailer. After waiting outside the house for 20 to 30 minutes, the officers figured no one was home.

“We’re stacked up and ready,” an officer said as we headed to the next target.

Decker parked on the street where I couldn’t see the officers as they confronted the suspect. After 20 minutes, Decker came back into the car, he seemed a bit out of breath. After a foot chase, Decker said, the officers arrested the suspect.

“He decided that he was gonna try not to go to jail,” said Decker. “That did not work out for him. He took off...His saving grace was that he knew the yard and knew where to go. That’s the only thing that kept us from getting to him quick.”

We headed toward the next residence. For the third time that night, no one was home.

The officers continued until 4 a.m., but Decker dropped me off at my car around midnight. I was struck by something he had earlier in the evening about the purpose of Operation Total Focus as he saw it. “It sucks, but we’ve gotta put our big boy pants on and come to work, and do what we’re being tasked to do, which is stop violent criminals, stop everything that moves, and find guns, warrants, drugs, all that stuff. We’re not supposed to be idle; we’re supposed to be moving.”

By Monday, SPD issued a press release that filled in some of those blanks on the whiteboard: 20 arrests, 205 grams of illegal drugs and 10 stolen weapons seized.

Drew Favakeh is the public safety and courts reporter for the Savannah Morning News. You can reach him at AFavakeh@savannahnow.com.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Savannah Police's Operation Total Focus nets 20 arrests, 10 stolen weapons