Reggie Kyle

Gadsden Police Officers served over 180 warrants Thursday morning for people who didn’t show up in court. Gadsden Mayor Craig Ford says these operations are necessary to clean up the city.

“It’s important for the city because of the initiative that we got is to clean up Gadsden. We want to make sure that everything that we’re doing is trying to make this a safer place to live and a more enjoyable place to live and part of that is taking care of the things you got going on as far as the legal system goes,” said Sgt. Dusty Ford.

Gadsden officials say ‘Operation No Show’ is an effort to hold people accountable when it comes to the legal system.

“We’ve had multiple warrants issued in the city. We’ve had several different opportunities for people to handle their business with the court system through amnesty day and things of that nature, so what we’re going after today (Thursday) is failure to appear warrants on anything from littering all the way into domestic violence,” said Sgt. Dusty Ford.

Mayor Ford says not only is his office showing support, but it’s important for him to be visible to the people of Gadsden.

“It’s important for me to show the citizens that we’re here to keep them safe also. Our number one goal today (Thursday) is for our officers to be safe, but go out and collect the people who should’ve shown up for court, failure to appear for some serious crimes. We wish we didn’t have to pick up anybody but unfortunately we are and we’re serious about this. It’s part of our ‘Operation Cleanup Gadsden’.”

Gadsden Police Sgt. Dusty Ford says it’s best to take care of these situations before law enforcement officers have to come and get you. They’re also planning more operations in the future.