San Joaquin County was swarming with law enforcement officers Wednesday and Thursday with 10 teams of 10 officers each looking for felons paroled back into the community by checking their residences in a search for criminal activity.
It was Operation Safe Holidays VIII 2015 designed to suppress robberies and violent crimes which normally increase throughout the holiday season within the county.  The county probation department and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation provided lists of subjects on active parole.  The information was utilized to design and execute county-wide preemptive parole and probation searches in anticipation of reducing criminal active throughout the month.
The San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Crime Analysis Unit identified high probability target areas within the county along with various profiles of criminals known to operate and engage in criminal activities in certain geographical areas.  The information focused on a high impact, zero tolerance patrol in those areas for the two-day operation.
Wednesday saw the officers surrounding homes and knocking on doors in an attempt to locate their parolees and probationers, making sure they were serving their probation and parole without committing new offenses.
On Thursday the officers worked from their patrol units on saturation patrols searching for offenders who were serving out their probation times away from county jail and state prison.
In Manteca on their first day, the officers parked their patrol cars in the Orchard Supply Shopping Center on Louise Avenue at North Main Street and discussed those they were seeking and laid out their strategies as the Manteca team if someone should react or bolt out a back door in an effort to evade the officers.
In addition to the officers from the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office, others came from Stockton Police Department, Lathrop Police Department, California Highway Patrol, San Joaquin County Probation Department and the special stolen car recovery detachment of the highway patrol, Delta RATT.
The first day of the program officers worked from 11 a.m. until 9 p.m. throughout the county in a sweep of their former prisoners. Some 120 locations were visited for parole/probation searches.  Throughout the 10 hours officers made 11 felony arrests, five misdemeanor arrests, five felony warrant arrests and one misdemeanor warrant arrests.
On the second day of the operation a saturation patrol was initiated and, officers made 22 arrests with five of those considered felonies and 17 misdemeanors along with 21 outstanding warrant arrests.  One drug violation arrest netted 3.6 grams of methamphetamine and one stolen vehicle was recovered.  There were also 27 citations written for vehicle code violations. 
The arrests for both days were recorded at 60 custodial arrests. Fourteen were contacted for parole violations.
It was about 6 p.m. on Wednesday when a Manteca Police Street Crimes Unit made a probation search of an apartment in the 300 block of Moffat Boulevard where they discovered a compartment under the floor of a living room where a .357 magnum revolver was discovered along with ammunition, drugs and body armor.  They arrested one man as a result and transported him to county jail in French Camp.