Police train efforts on 'red zones'

Boston police, saying that one-fourth of the city's gun crimes happen in about 10 areas totaling half a square mile, said yesterday that they and federal agencies will flood those spots to remove criminals.

In ''Operation Red Zone," federal marshals and immigration agents will swoop into the areas to round up people with arrest warrants or immigration violations. At the same time, federal prosecutors and law enforcement officials will gather intelligence and build cases against those who continue to plague the area, possibly including racketeering prosecutions against gangs suspected of a pattern of violence.

Federal law enforcement officials said yesterday that while they have worked with the city on various task forces to target violence in Boston, this crackdown will put unusual numbers of officers in very small areas and will produce rapid and significant results.

''We're going to concentrate on the worst of the worse," said Acting US Marshal William Fallon. ''We can have an immediate impact. We can get people off the street right away, as opposed to building cases based on their violent activity."

Kenneth Kaiser, special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston office, called it a more ''surgical approach."

''It's more than just doing sweeps or patrols of the area," he said. ''It's a strategy that's being developed to target these areas and take out the bad characters."

Police would not identify the 10 areas, saying they don't want to tip off criminals, but say that about 85 percent of the city's violent crime occurs in Dorchester, Mattapan, and Roxbury.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino said the operation will start immediately and will also include clergy, businesses, community groups and others. It will continue indefinitely until he and Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O'Toole ''are satisfied we've got the individuals who are causing the violence in the neighborhoods," he said.

''We've got to give the people who live in the red zones peace of mind," the mayor added, pledging to meet with law enforcement officials every two weeks until crime is reduced.

One neighborhood leader welcomed the new operation, saying that crime is the city's most pressing issue. But Mable Graham, president of the Mattapan Civic Association, said that police should give more information to affected communities.

''They need to come and meet with the community," Graham said yesterday. ''Right now, it seems we're left out of the loop when it comes to police work."

The focus on the 10 most violent spots across the city represents the latest front in Boston's renewed assault on crime. The city has recorded 67 homicides so far this year, the most in any year since the 96 in 1995. Shootings citywide through mid-November exceeded 300, up 31 percent over last year.

''The bottom line is that about 25 percent of our gun violence is happening in less than 1 percent of our geography," said O'Toole.

Police Superintendent Paul Joyce said that in the first 11 months this year, those spots accounted for 21 percent of shooting homicides, 26 percent of nonfatal shootings, and 18 percent of firearm-related arrests.

''These are not neighborhoods," Joyce said. ''These are very, very small areas."

O'Toole and Joyce presented their findings yesterday at a 90-minute Parkman House meeting, which was called by Menino and which also drew US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan, Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, and top officials from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

Sullivan, whose office has been steadily increasing the number of federal gun prosecutions in recent years, said he plans to assign a federal prosecutor full time to the Boston police, which will help police get federal arrest warrants on short notice, work out deals with potential informants, and analyze information in investigations.

He said yesterday that a former gang and drug prosecutor, who left the office for a private law firm, has agreed to return to take the job and will probably start in a couple of weeks.

Fallon said the marshal's service will probably bring in a dozen deputy marshals, including some from out of state, for the operation.

James McNally, an AFT spokesman in Boston, said one supervisor and 10 agents are already assigned to the Boston police.

''There are going to be a lot of cops, a lot of troopers, and a lot of agents over there," he said. ''The more people in the area where crime is being committed, bad guys are going to be looking over their shoulders."

Kaiser said he will assign FBI agents from the violent crime and gang investigation units to work with Boston police in the operation.

''These people in these areas, they're concerned about Al Qaeda, but they're also concerned about the terrorists walking the streets, the ones they know who are the gang bangers," Kaiser said. ''On a daily basis they're afraid of that stuff."

''Everybody's got the same goal: To reduce the violent crime problem in the city of Boston."

Shelley Murphy can be reached at shmurphy@globe.com.Suzanne Smalley can be reached at ssmalley@globe.com.