The flood of arrests since the August launch of Operation Rio Grande — the massive crackdown on crime followed by attempts to connect addicts and homeless people with treatment and services — has left the Salt Lake County district attorney’s office pleading for some immediate help.
So far, 369 new felony cases have resulted from the arrests, which also triggered the processing of between 600 and 800 outstanding warrants — in total about 1,100 new cases, according to District Attorney Sim Gill.
He wants to immediately hire two additional prosecutors and a paralegal to manage the workload — one that is only expected to increase with continued daily arrests in the Rio Grande neighborhood around the state’s largest homeless shelter.