NATCHEZ — Adams County’s new HEAT unit has started doing sweeps to curtail crimes associated with loitering.

The Adams County Sheriff’s Office booked 18 people into the county jail Thursday and Friday morning. While five of the arrests were warrants or court-ordered bookings for unrelated crimes, eight people were charged with trespassing and three others were charged with drug crimes.

Sheriff Travis Patten said the newly formed Heavy Enforcement Anti-Crime Team (HEAT) and Natchez-Adams Regional Counterdrug Task Force (NARC) — which was formerly Metro Narcotics — worked together to make the arrests in areas where loitering has led to other problems.

“At one of these places, they had built a gambling shack, with fire pits and all kinds of other stuff going on, and with all those people being there, it had recently led to one of our citizens being murdered outside a store in the Broadmoor area,” Patten said. “If loitering hadn’t been allowed at that store, that guy might still be alive.”

Patten said prior to starting the sweeps — which began last week — the sheriff’s office went to the owners of several businesses with significant loitering problems and received a written agreement saying the owners had no problem with the sheriff’s office clearing their lots of loiterers. The sheriff said the move is “not a round-up, but just enforcing the law.”

“These were places where we had people peeing on the sides of the building, gambling, making noise and other nuisances,” he said. “We went out a week ago and let them know that this wouldn’t be tolerated under any circumstances any more, and anybody caught loitering would be going to jail.”

Patten said while the arrests were being made, members of the community were passing by and honking, telling the officers they appreciated the effort to clean up the area.

“They are happy they can go out there and go to the store in peace, or drive by — and in some cases walk outside their houses — without seeing somebody’s private parts,” he said. “If we can give people a little more peace of mind, that is what we are going to do. We are on a mission to take back this city and county, and that is what we are going to do.”