U.S. Attorney Troy Eid will hold a press conference at 3:00 pm today to announce today’s round-up and indictments of suspected gang members in the Denver metro area.

A press conference is scheduled at 3 p.m. in Eid’s office. It will involve leaders of the gang task force, including federal prosecutors, the FBI, the Aurora and Denver Police departments and other state and local law enforcement partners.

It’s unlikely suspected gang members were planning on going downtown to protest. (I haven’t met too many who are interested in politics.) While I don’t think the cops believe the gang members are a threat to convention go-ers, it’s no secret that at least 900 police officers from surrounding metro areas have been hired for convention duty. That will leave fewer officers in Aurora and the other areas to police their own streets during the convention. As I wrote in an earlier post, many of the courts in the surrounding areas aren’t scheduling hearings during Convention week since so many cops won’t be able to attend. With the Indictments being brought in federal court, it’s likely that most of those rounded up will be detained without bond pending trial . Trial in multi-defendant gang cases can easily take up to a year, since they frequently involve wiretaps. Could today’s round-up be an effort to clean up the streets in advance of the convention as a crime prevention measure for Denver and the outlying areas during a period when fewer cops will be available to deal with it? Just a thought.