To Salinas Police Chief Louis Fetherolf, the fact that more than 300 cops – including 100 federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents – descended on the nation’s Salad Bowl last week for a huge gang and drug bust underscores the magnitude of the city’s organized criminal network.

“You can’t amass that level of federal assistance coming from all over the nation to tiny Salinas if there weren’t a significant problem here,” Fetherolf says. “This is a major, major point of organized gangster activity in the United States.”

On April 22, authorities rounded up 37 gang members and seized 40 pounds of cocaine and 14 pounds of marijuana in a sweep dubbed “Operation Knockout.” The operation came after an eight-month investigation that netted 57 arrests of the city’s rival Norteños and Sureños.

“We’ve taken a considerable wedge out of the trunk of the tree,” Fetherolf says. “That doesn’t mean we’ve chopped the tree down and poisoned the roots yet.”

The sting, which Fetherolf calls day one of Judgment Day, caps the chief’s first year running the department. Although he cites a host of internal accomplishments, like upgrading the department’s fleet and holding a January team-building workshop, he has most visibly commandeered a huge drop in the city’s murder rate.

By last April the city had seen 12 homicides in 2009, but this year there has been only two. A 32-year-old man was shot and killed Wednesday night. Fetherolf credits the behind-the-scenes investigations that culminated in Operation Knockout as well as the city’s Ceasefire strategy for the crime decrease.

Still, past gang takedowns have led to violent power struggles in Salinas.Attorney General Jerry Brown promised to keep pressure on the city’s gangs by forming a Monterey County task force, overseen by the state Department of Justice, that will continue investigating drug and violent crimes.

Although the state and feds are chipping in, Fetherolf is worried he could lose another 15 to 21 positions as the city tries to fill a more than $12 million budget gap for next fiscal year. “When you’ve got this kind of major crime going on in the city, we need hardcore suppression.”