Sheriff’s Dept. Will Use New ‘Device’ in Open-Door Policy on ‘Rock Houses’

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department now has its own motorized battering ram to gain entrance to “rock houses,” fortified dwellings where rock cocaine is sold, and other heavily barricaded structures.

Only, don’t call it a battering ram.

It’s “a new mobile device to facilitate entry into fortified locations,” the sheriff’s information bureau said in announcing Wednesday’s demonstration for the press.

Or, it’s “a penetration device,” as Sheriff Sherman Block said as the device was displayed in the parking lot of a small, abandoned motel on Imperial Highway in the Lennox area.

This is, of course, no mere matter of semantics.

The Los Angeles Police Department has its own motorized battering ram, known alternately around police headquarters at Parker Center as V-100. Not only does the department call it a battering ram, but so does the media and the American Civil Liberties Union lawyers, who have asked the state Supreme Court to decide on the constitutionality of the Police Department use of the vehicle.

The Police Department’s ram swung into action nearly a year ago--last Feb. 6, when Chief Daryl F. Gates called out the media, christened his ram with a bottle of wine and then rode it into action against a suspected rock house in Pacoima.

The raiders found two women and three children at home and produced one-tenth of a gram of cocaine. One of the women, with the help of the ACLU, sued the Police Department, and it is that suit the Supreme Court has been requested to consider.

Block was asked by reporters to compare and contrast his new device to Gates’ ram.

The purpose of the device is the same, he said, “to make quick and safer entry into a barricaded location.”

In the past, sheriff’s deputies have used grappling hooks attached to trucks or hand-held rams, and that takes more time, eliminating the element of surprise and making it more likely that an officer or civilian will be injured, he said.

That is an increasingly troublesome possibility, Block said, because “. . . in up to 95% of the narcotics warrants we serve now, we find weaponry (in the structure searched).”

The sheriff’s penetration device, he said, “. . . reduces significantly the possibility of injury to our own people and persons inside the location.”

Block said his department had a year longer than the Police Department to develop its device and even put a video camera inside a mock rock house to tape what the device looks like from the occupant’s point of view.

The end result, Block said, is a device that works from a slightly different angle.

Temporarily Attached

While the Police Department’s ram is fixed permanently onto the front of the armored personnel carrier the department got from the federal government, the sheriff’s device is temporarily attached to the scoop on a big yellow skiploader borrowed from the county.

Block’s device is an 18-foot-long, double-walled steel tube weighing 800 pounds. The scoop can be moved up and down, adjusting the angle of penetration. It has a hook-like attachment on its business end--a piece of steel that drops down after penetration.

The idea, explained both Block and his device driver, is that you aim the pointed end of the device at the top of the fortified door, crash through and the hook drops down. You put the skiploader into reverse, and the hook pulls the door down and out.

Down and out, that’s the important thing, the sheriff said.

“The point of entry is above the door. The possibility of debris striking anybody inside is pretty remote . . . because it (the device and its hook) has pulling force, not pushing force.”

Steel Doors

Having said that, Block ordered his driver into action against the mock rock house, and the device moved forward, hitting just above the special set of double steel doors that had been installed for the press demonstration. Then the driver backed it up, dragging the doors down with the hook.

To use the device, officers must get permission from an officer of the rank of assistant sheriff or above.

And fair warning will be given to those inside--”Always, we will give verbal warning and notice before we enter any location, unless we’re involved in an urgent life-threatening situation,” Block said.