For the second straight day, Boston police officers Friday arrested more than a dozen people in an area known as “Methadone Mile” as part of efforts to make the neighborhood safer following an attack Thursday during which a correction officer headed to work was beaten with a metal pipe.
The arrests were made Friday evening around the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Southampton Street, a neighborhood that includes homeless shelters, recovery services, Boston Medical Center, and the Suffolk County House of Correction.
All told, officers arrested 16 people, Boston police said. Seven of the people taken into custody faced arrest warrants for missing court appearances in pending criminal cases, and six were arrested for new drug offenses, ranging from drug possession to trafficking, police said.
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Four other people were picked up on straight warrants for crimes they were accused of committing prior to Friday and had not yet gone to court to answer for.
Thirteen of the people taken into custody are Massachusetts residents. The remaining three told officers they are from Trenton, N.J., Manchester, N.H., and the Bronx.
All 16 people are scheduled to be arraigned Monday in Roxbury Municipal Court, police said. An earlier sweep of the same area Thursday netted 18 arrests, police said.
A spokeswoman for Mayor Martin J. Walsh declined to comment on the latest arrests, directing questions to Boston police. She issued a statement highlighting Walsh’s efforts to tackle the opioid epidemic by pushing for the construction of a recovery campus on Long Island, suing pharmaceutical companies implicated in the crisis, and spending more on public safety and quality-of-life initiatives.
“Helping people in recovery has been one of Mayor Walsh’s priorities since day one,” mayoral spokeswoman Samantha Ormsby said in the statement.
The pressure to improve neighborhood safety intensified Thursday morning after police said a correction officer for the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department was attacked by a group of men on Atkinson Street as he drove to work. During the confrontation, police said the officer was struck with a metal pipe and robbed of a watch, glasses, and cellphone. He was treated at BMC and released from the hospital later that day, his union said. The officer’s name hasn’t been made public.
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Police have arrested two men in the attack.
On Friday, Torre Jenkins , 45, was arraigned on charges of breaking and entering a motor vehicle and attempted larceny of a motor vehicle. Bail was set at $750.
Police arrested the second man, Sean Stuart, 51, of Boston, on Friday and charged him with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon for allegedly kicking the officer.
Stuart is scheduled to be arraigned Monday in Roxbury Municipal Court, a spokeswoman for Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins said. The spokeswoman declined to comment on the latest arrests and referred the Globe to earlier statements from Rollins in which she vowed to hold the assailants accountable.
“The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office is keeping the corrections officer who was violently assaulted [Thursday] in our thoughts,” Rollins said in a statement issued on the day of the attack.
Suffolk County Sheriff Steven W. Tompkins on Friday requested an emergency meeting with city officials to discuss his concerns about safety on the streets surrounding the jail. The meeting is being scheduled, Walsh’s office said.
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A spokesman for Tompkins and the leader of the union representing correction officers for the sheriff’s department didn’t immediately return messages Saturday.
Laura Crimaldi can be reached at laura.crimaldi@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @lauracrimaldi.