Kevin Johnson

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Federal authorities Wednesday announced the arrests of more than 8,000 violent fugitives, including 559 wanted for murder, in the past six weeks as part of an operation aimed at combating persistent crime in 12 cities.

In Baltimore alone, 148 fugitives were swept up, including 23 murder suspects in the effort led by the U.S. Marshals Service, known as Operation Violence Reduction 12.

"With warrants in hand, and after extensive extra training for the dangerous situations they were likely to encounter, the marshals and our state and local partners went to work getting the worst of the worst off of our streets,'' Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates said.

Also among the most serious offenders were 648 gang members and 846 suspected sex offenders arrested in Brooklyn, N.Y., Camden, N.J., Chicago, Compton, Calif., Fresno, Calif., Gary, Ind., Milwaukee, New Orleans, Oakland, Savannah, Ga., and Washington, D.C.

In some cases, the deputy attorney general said that the targeted fugitives "initiated gun battles, forced barricaded standoffs, assaulted officers and did everything they could to evade arrest.''

"This was a lot of work and not an easy task,'' Yates said. "But by planning this carefully, they were able to target that handful of bad guys who cause the most violence in our communities and who were out on our streets despite having open warrants for their arrest.''

The average suspect netted in the mass arrests also offered a disturbing portrait: 35 years old, seven prior arrests and three convictions.

"This truly validated that we were going after the most dangerous criminals who were hardened, experienced and repeat offenders,'' said David Harlow, deputy director of the U.S. Marshals Service.

Counted among the 8,075 suspects were Blake Fitzgerald and Brittany Harper, whose string of multi-state warrants for armed robbery, burglary and kidnapping, earned them national notoriety as the modern day "Bonnie and Clyde.''

Last month, while attempting to flee members of a Marshals task force in Florida, the couple fired on officers, resulting in a gun battle that left Fitzgerald dead. Harper survived and was arrested.

Yates also singled out last month's arrest of a New York man wanted for the stabbing deaths of his girlfriend, their 5-month-old daughter and the girlfriend's 1-year-old daughter. Michael Sykes was taken into custody Feb. 13 in Queens, N.Y., by task force officers.

In addition to the thousands of fugitives, the six-week sweep resulted in the recovery of 17 children, ages 11 months to 15 years, who had been abducted from their parents or legal guardians.

Harlow described the federal operation as having produced 'tremendous results,'' but local law enforcement's record of pursuing fugitives has been uneven at best.

A 2014 USA TODAY investigation found that police and prosecutors allowed tens of thousands of wanted felons — including more than 3,300 people accused of sexual assaults, robberies and homicides — to escape justice merely by crossing a state border.

The ones that get away

In 186,873 cases, police indicated that they would not spend the time or money to retrieve the fugitive from another state, a process known as extradition.