Man Killed as Deputies Smash Into Two Houses

Sheriff’s deputies shot and killed a 58-year-old suspected drug dealer during a pre-dawn raid Tuesday in which a special weapons team used tow trucks to rip the doors off two alleged “rock houses” in South-Central Los Angeles.

Roberto Zanadia Calderon, identified as a Cuban refugee who entered the United States during the 1980 Mariel boat lift, was slain during a shoot-out with deputies inside a heavily fortified house in the 700 block of West Imperial Highway where cocaine “rocks” allegedly had been sold.

Fifteen suspects were arrested during the 5:10 a.m. raid on the three small clapboard houses on the same Imperial Highway lot and at two other South Los Angeles locations. Five suspects had been booked on drug and weapons offenses and four people had been released by late Tuesday afternoon.

Latest Tools in War

The tow trucks were the latest tools used by law enforcement in the escalating war on rock houses in the Los Angeles area.

Last week, the Los Angeles Police Department used a battering ram mounted on an armored personnel carrier to break into a suspected rock house in Pacoima. The use of the ram has been criticized by community, religious and civil rights groups as excessive force.

Authorities said the techniques are necessary to deal with heavily armed cocaine dealers who barricade themselves in fortress-like residences to guard against potential robbers as well as police raiding parties.

The 25-man sheriff’s special weapons team was serving search warrants at Calderon’s residence--the center house on the West Imperial Highway lot--when a gunfight erupted and left the drug suspect dead. A 2-month-old child was in another house on the lot during the shoot-out, deputies said.

Identified Themselves

Deputies said they identified themselves on a bullhorn, then used the tow trucks to pull the doors off two of the three houses on the lot.

“Prior to making entry, deputies heard shots fired from inside the house,” said sheriff’s spokesman Deputy John Broussard. “As deputies made their entry, they were fired upon. They returned the fire and killed (Calderon).”

Deputy Stephen C. Lee said the search warrants were served as part of an investigation into suspected cocaine operations at the three houses on Imperial Highway and also as part of a follow-up probe into a Jan. 16 homicide in Lennox.

Three suspects are in custody in connection with the shooting death of Pablo Valles, 36, Lee said. Investigators were searching Tuesday for additional evidence in the slaying, he said.

Sgt. Bob Perry, the chief investigator into the Valles homicide, said the victim in that case was at one time a member of a cocaine ring from which detectives had been led to the three West Imperial Highway houses and to the other locations raided Tuesday on 109th Street and on Figueroa Street.

Calderon “surfaced as being a salesman of drugs within that (Imperial Highway) location” and had been identified in the search warrant “by first name only,” Perry said.

Lee said narcotics detectives made an undercover drug purchase last week at the Imperial Highway complex. Neighborhood residents said the house was a well-known distribution center for rock cocaine, which is smoked by users.

Cubans Suspected

Lee said the house where the Calderon was killed “is the hub of a series of rock houses” and that “all of them involved Marielitos “--the Cuban refugees who entered the United States during the boat lift.

A small quantity of cocaine, 39 small bags of marijuana, several stolen weapons--including a sawed-off shotgun--and 20 vials containing cocaine residue were seized from the Imperial Highway residences, deputies said.