Boston police make several arrests in ‘clean sweep’ response to attack on correction officer

BOSTON (WHDH) - Boston police officers made several arrests Thursday night in direct response to an attack on a corrections officer that happened hours earlier in the same area.

Fifteen people have been taken into custody along Atkinson Street while others were given shelter or medical attention as officers conducted “operation clean sweep” an order handed to them by Mayor Martin J. Walsh and Police Commissioner William Gross.

City leaders looking to send a strong message that drug use, sleeping on streets and violence will not be tolerated.

Related: Sheriff: Correction officer attacked, brutally beaten by group of people in Boston

“They just corralled us all on the street in between a whole bunch of police officers on that end and a whole bunch on this end,” one man said. “They told us we couldn’t leave until they started checking us all out and finding out if we had warrants and stuff like that.”

Witnesses say that the area is known for severe homelessness and drug addiction problems and characterize the night’s actions as merely for show.

The officer was arriving at work and sitting in his car on Atkinson Street around 7:30 a.m. when someone reached through his rolled down window and struck him, according to the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department.

Officials say the officer was just a block away from the jail when a man started exchanging words with him.

Surveillance video from a nearby business showed the officer exit his vehicle before he was promptly swarmed, jumped, and brutally beaten.

The correction officer, whose name has not been released, told responding officers that one of the five attackers struck him several times with a metal pipe before they stole his watch, glasses, and phone, according to the Boston Police Department.

One man has been arrested in connection with that incident.

In a statement, Correction Officers Local 419 denounced the criminal act, saying the “area has become a haven for crime, clearly without recourse, and is based on the neglect from the city.”

The union went on to label the incident a “quality of life issue” and called upon the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office to “make a stand” in prosecuting those responsible for the attack.

The officer received medical treatment for his injuries and was released hours after the attack.

Later in the evening, cleaners were brought in and instructed to remove needles and trash that had been strewn in the roadway.

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