This Week in Crime: MS-13 Arrest, Plus an Ironic--and Tragic--HIt-and-Run

A member of MS-13 arrested in Reston over the weekend was one of 30 gang members and associates captured by federal and county authorities during a threee-day gang sweep.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) National Gang Unit announced Monday the arrests of 30 gang members and associates. Agents seized one weapon as part of this three-day law enforcement operation executed in Northern Virginia.

Working side-by-side with more than 60 local law enforcement authorities including deputies from the Fairfax County Sheriff's Office and detectives from the Fairfax County Police Department, this is the latest local effort in an ongoing national ICE-HSI initiative to target foreign-born gang members and gang associates in Northern Virginia.

Of the 30 arrests, 26 individuals were arrested on administrative immigration violations and nine were arrested for criminal offenses and face prosecution for various federal, state and local crimes including re-entry after deportation, assault, grand larceny, destruction of property and carrying a concealed weapon. Of those arrested, one was a U.S. citizen and 29 were foreign nationals. The 29 face deportation either now or when their criminal prosecution is complete.

Members and associates of MS-13, Mexican Pride and Southside Locos were arrested during this three-day multi-agency operation. Of those arrested, 10 are from Honduras, seven are from El Salvador, nine from Guatemala and three are from Mexico, and one is a U.S. citizen. One of those arrested was a woman.

Federal officials didn't identify all 30 arrestees, but one they did was 30-year-old Juan Otero Navarro, a Honduran national and a member of MS-13. He was arrested in Reston for illegal re-entry after deportation, and his criminal history includes convictions for carrying a concealed weapon and destruction of property. Federal criminal prosecution is pending for re-entry of a previously removed alien.

Meanwhile, a Charlottesville resident was charged with felony hit and run and DUI after gravely injuring a Reston VDOT employee working near a memorial for highway workers.

Less than a mile from the granite marker dedicated to the memory of fallen highway workers, a Virginia Department of Transportation employee has been struck and gravely injured by what police are calling a drunk driving hit-and-run.

It happened at 4:05am July 17, when Jose Porfirio Martinez, 50, of Reston, was operating a jackhammer inside a work zone at mile post 103 in a closed-off eastbound lane of I-64 on Afton Mountain.

Moments earlier, police had taken a report of an erratic driver in a car in that vicinity consistent with the description of the 1999 Buick sedan that struck Martinez, according to a State Police release. The driver of the Buick fled the scene, but a State Trooper located the suspect vehicle at the home of a 22-year-old Charlottesville resident and took her into custody. The suspect has been charged with DUI and felony hit-and-run.

If only irony was a felony.