Pacoima Leaders Protest Police Use of Motorized Ram

San Fernando Valley community leaders Friday night demanded an official investigation of police use of a new weapon, an armored military vehicle with a 14-foot battering ram, to smash into a suspected drug “rock house” in Pacoima.

An angry crowd, gathered in a Pacoima church, cheered as the police battering ram was described as a “brand-new toy, christened on blacks” by the Rev. Jeffrey Joseph Sr.

“We don’t need new weapons to be tried out on us. Of all the methods that there are to arrest a person, they used a brand-new toy,” Joseph told about 50 area residents at the meeting, organized by local ministers and the San Fernando Valley chapter of the NAACP. Joseph and other speakers vowed to oppose future use of the police vehicle, which was unveiled during the raid Wednesday evening.

Unaware of Children

Los Angeles police said earlier Friday they were unaware that three small children were inside the house when the armored military vehicle knocked through the wall of a front room.

A child was observed playing in the home’s front yard at one point during the surveillance that preceded the drug raid, said Capt. Noel Cunningham, head of the Field Services Narcotics Division. “But we didn’t know children were there” during the raid, he said.

Occupants of the house said the children had been playing in the front room only moments before the battering ram was used.

Police officials said the armored vehicle will be used again to break into suspected “rock houses,” fortified dwellings from which drugs are sold.

The only occupants of the Pacoima house were two women and thethree children, two of whom were eating ice cream. No one was hurt, but the ramming left a gaping hole in an outside wall.

A search of the house turned up no guns and only a small amount of marijuana, police said. They arrested Antonio Johnson, 25, who was not home at the time of the raid, on suspicion of sale of cocaine based on what officers said was an earlier undercover purchase from the home.

The raid continued to evoke strong criticism and support Friday.

“These weapons may be appropriate for a battlefield, but not to serve an arrest warrant,” said American Civil Liberties Union attorney Joan Howarth.

Jose DeSosa, president of the San Fernando Valley chapter of the NAACP, said, “We want to find out why storm-trooper tactics were used in our community. We support the concept of removing harmful drugs but don’t support actions that indiscriminately endanger the lives of children.”

DeSosa called use of the battering ram “Gestapo tactics.” He said it “reflected no concern for the safety or the welfare of the occupants of the residence.”

The protest meeting Friday night was held at the Greater Community Baptist Church in Pacoima.

The audience shouted “Amen!” as the Rev. Joseph of the New Heaven Missionary Baptist Church in Pacoima said, “I’m concerned with the way they bombarded that house. When I saw those walls knocked down and knew that there were babies inside, I say to you, what kind of mentality is that?”

Among those also addressing the meeting were two other ministers, DeSosa, East Valley City Councilman Howard Finn and Capt. Stan McGarry, commanding officer of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Foothill Division. The speakers sat on the church’s altar, with the audience seated before them in pews.

McGarry faced the hostile crowd last, following appeals for an investigation by the Police Commission. Speaking briefly, he told of how undercover narcotics officers had bought cocaine from the front door of the house that was raided.

Johnson, in the audience after his release on bail, shouted, “That’s a lie!” at McGarry’s comment.

Earlier in the day, other police officials argued that use of the battering ram vehicle is safer for officers and civilians than other techniques for staging drug raids.

Police Capt. Cunningham cited a December drug raid in which a woman was killed when a police diversionary explosive device, commonly known as a “flash bang,” was hurled into a rock house. Other officers, however, said a “flash bang” device was also used in Wednesday’s raid.

Cunningham said the battering ram “absolutely” will be used again. “We can’t retreat,” he said. “We have a lot of concern, but we do what we have to do. We can’t sit and hope and pray that these guys be nice guys and come out.”

Councilman Finn, whose district includes Pacoima, said he intends to introduce a motion before the City Council next week that would establish guidelines for future raids with the armored vehicle.

“I very definitely feel we need some kind of weapon,” Finn said. “My concern is to make sure that there is enough advance surveillance (to) ensure that no innocent people will be hurt.”

But City Councilman David Cunningham, a frequent critic of police actions, Friday sent a letter to Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates praising the use of the battering ram.

“These insidious fortresses for drug dealings have plagued our neighborhoods far too long,” the councilman, who represents South Los Angeles, wrote. “Often drug dealers have time to destroy drugs and other valuable evidence that would assist prosecutors in putting these criminals where they belong behind bars . . .. Through the use of the battering ram, our Police Department can gain access to a rock house in seconds, gaining precious time needed to confiscate drugs, weapons and other paraphernalia.”

Cmdr. William Booth, a Police Department spokesman, said the case probably will be presented to the district attorney’s office early next week.

Police officials said the presence of children would not stop use of the battering ram.

“We strongly believe that if dope dealers get the impression that you can make a rock house into a sanctuary by having children inside, you can then be assured that children will be inside every one of them,” Police Chief Gates, who rode aboard the armored vehicle as it slammed into the house, said Thursday.

Booth said police “try everything we can to make a determination to know who is in the house, but knowing that children are in the house will not necessarily preclude us from making a safe entry.”

Booth refused, however, to say what techniques police will use to ensure the safety of children and other persons within a home entered with the battering ram.

He said it is “common for regular residences to be fortified into rock houses.”

Police Capt. Cunningham said there is “some indication, and this is a gut reaction based upon talking to investigators, that there might be a strategy to put children and women in these locations to make us act a little more civilized, so to speak.”

The house raided in Pacoima has steel bars and a set of double steel front doors, which Gates said indicated the house was fortified for drug trafficking.

In addition to the drug arrest of Johnson, police arrested Johnson’s wife, Linda, 24, for child endangering. Her 5-year-old son was taken into protective custody, police said.

Also contributing to this story was Times Staff Writer Andy Furillo.