Police announce arrests in gang and drug cases

Chicago police are rounding up suspected drug dealers that were targeted in an effort to crack down on crime in the city’s two most violent neighborhoods.

On Thursday, officers arrested several suspected drug dealers after an undercover operation revealed they were part of a drug dealing conspiracy on the city’s West Side.

The arrests and the announcement that they had warrants on a total of 17 people on drug charges is the first detailed look a crackdown Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy announced last month.

The operation calls for both undercover investigations and the positioning of more uniformed officers into the most violent spots of the two neighborhoods — one on the city’s South Side and the other on the West Side.