OGDEN - Police said they have caught their main suspect in a wedding after-party shooting that left two dead this weekend in Ogden.
Officers arrested Riqo Mariano Perea, 19, Tuesday afternoon in Layton. He was jailed on suspicion of murdering Sabrina Prieto, 22, and Resendo-Nava Navarez, 29, who were shot about 1 a.m. Sunday at a house at 717 E. 1050 North in the city's seventh gang shooting in a month. Both victims were cousins of the bride, family friends said.
Two other guests were seriously injured in the shooting.
In what detectives believe was a retaliatory attack, another shooting victim was found early Monday in an industrial area of the city.
The eruption of gang violence this summer will be answered with aggressive police enforcement, city officials announced Tuesday.
The Ogden Police Department will immediately crack down on gang members by sending two pairs of "zero-tolerance" officers into central city and other neighborhoods where gang members live and where gang violence has occurred.
While the department's gang unit gathers intelligence, the four additional officers - on overtime from their regular duties - will make arrests. "Any law that can be enforced, will be enforced," said Police Chief Jon Greiner.
Mayor Matthew Godfrey said he also will expedite the hiring of a six-officer crime reduction unit, which had been scheduled for January, and will ask the City Council to approve funding soon for a ninth neighborhood division with six or seven new officers.
Comparing gangs to a cancer that must be surgically removed, Godfrey said police must stop the gang violence before it spreads to innocent residents.
"We're not going to wait for an errant bullet," he said. "We're going after those who are committing serious crimes. . . . We will find these people and put them away."
Godfrey announced a six-point plan to stamp out the gang violence.
Besides adding two two-officer crews to gang enforcement, a crime-reduction unit and a ninth neighborhood division, the city will work with the congressional delegation to secure funding for two more immigration officers in Ogden, work with landlords to evict convicted gang members and support efforts to add more state prison beds.
Godfrey said the Ogden area needs two more federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents because of the high number of undocumented immigrants accused of crimes. Such immigrants could be sent home rather than jailed here, he said.
Greiner acknowledged it will be difficult to recruit a dozen new officers, given the tight market for law enforcers.
He plans to offer bonuses or finders' fees to his officers who recruit officers from other jurisdictions.
Godfrey said he expects to announce more gang-busting measures in coming weeks.
"We've had a precipitous decline in the crime rate in the past eight years and we're not going to give that up."
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