ATLANTA — For two days this week, DeKalb County Sheriff's deputies drove across the county to track down suspects currently wanted for domestic violence-related crimes.
From Wednesday through Thursday, teams of deputies attempted to execute as many arrest warrants as possible, out of more than 450 warrants connected to domestic violence crimes.
The warrants are for both misdemeanor and felony charges ranging from battery to assault, stalking, criminal trespassing, property damage, family violence, and child cruelty.
The two-day operation is the latest chapter for a task force called Project Safe Home. This week deputies cleared 27 warrants out of 93 attempts, with some suspects being sought on multiple warrants.
In total, 15 arrests were made over the course of a week.
Those arrests and warrants cleared are part of the DeKalb Sheriff's Office attempt to chip away at a growing number of pandemic-era arrest warrants for domestic violence crimes.
"We have constantly and consistently seen where the number of domestic violence warrants within in DeKalb County continues to be on the rise," DeKalb County Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy Randy Akies said.
He added that increase has been taking place over the past 24 months.
Project Safe Home began in May of 2020, only a couple of months after the pandemic began when there were 151 active domestic violence warrants in DeKalb.
Three operations across May, August, and October of last year netted 71 total arrests.
Another operation as part of Project Safe Home this past May led to 21 more arrests.
Akie added that the arrests are made with the victims in mind.
"The sheriff's office wants to make sure we do our part in ensuring those individuals that are wanted for participating in domestic violence incidents are taken off of the streets and they're brought before the judicial system as quickly as possible," he explained.
While deputies made 15 arrests this week as part of Project Safe Home, 11Alive was invited to follow deputies Thursday morning as they attempted to serve warrants.
Deputies worked to track down eight separate suspects, but none of them were located. Akies said in such cases, his office vowes to continue to work to track down the outstanding suspects.
"Little more investigation work to send the deputies back out and to ensure we can find those individuals that we are looking for," he added.