Nassau County Police say they made 28 arrests in Mineola as part of Operation Clean-Sweep, a county-wide program involving the deployment of patrol officers in an effort to prevent crime throughout the county.

According to the Nassau County Police Third Precinct, police made 28 arrests in Mineola from 5 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 26 to 2 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 27.

Deputy commanding officer of the Third Precinct Steven Williams said most of the arrests involved quality of life issues in the Mineola area. Police conducted 42 plate checks, 60 car stops, stopped nine suspicious pedestrians and checked 25 people for outstanding warrants.

Arrests including those for possession of narcotics, two public lewdness arrests, consumption of alcohol in pubic, some arrests for outstanding warrants, one person arrested who was on probation and found to have items he is prohibited from possessing, trespassing in the parking garage at 200 Old Country Road and trespassing in the pool area.

Williams said the sweep involved pretty much the entire village area.

Normally, the village has an average of three and a half patrol cars at a given time patrolling the Village of Mineola. The 28 arrests came at a time when there was a supervisor, nine police officers and four officers from the Bureau of Special Operations handling the assignment.

"They did a great job," said Williams. "The intent is to demonstrate a very proactive police posture and send a message that we're here to impact the quality of life and make the people feel that they're safe."

Williams said that for Mineola, this was phase one of the Operation Clean-Sweep. For phase two, the objective is to reinforce some of the things that were done during phase one. "Usually, phase two is less intensive. What we try to do is maybe put some bicycle patrols out or some foot patrols out there just to kind of secure the areas that we secured during phase one," he said.

Williams said the detail involved quality of life issues such as driving recklessly in the parking garage, trespassers at the pool who chose to ignore the security guard, weapons possessions and narcotics possessions.

According to Chief McHale of the Nassau County Police, there were 10 arrests for trespassing, five arrests for open warrants, seven for possession of a controlled substance or marijuana, two for possession of a gravity knife and switchblade, an altercation whereby a subject tried to take an officer's gun away and was arrested for attempted robbery, two for public lewdness, one for an open container and arrests for DWI and obstruction.

McHale said the detail was directed at congregating individuals, some of which are possible gang members.