Santa Ana : City Extends Program Aimed at Drug Dealers

The City Council has given a 90-day extension and allocated an additional $294,000 to an experimental police program that concentrates police in areas of high narcotics activity.

But the council also halved the staff of Swat-Hypes--an acronym for High Yield Police Enforcement Services--because the program has been so successful.

The program targets street dealers of marijuana and heroin, said Lt. Dave Salazar, who heads up the group. Police make a series of drug “buys” at a location, move in, arrest suspected sellers and board up the building, he said.

Police have been aggressively pursuing users of drugs since the program’s inception in October and, consequently, drug activity has slowed, a report said. Therefore, the council trimmed the force in half Monday, leaving 10 officers and four sergeants assigned full time to the detail.

Salazar said there have been about 1,500 arrests so far and that 88 homes or businesses operating as centers for drug sales have been closed. About 300 of those arrests were for sales of narcotics and the rest were for “possession, under the influence, robbery, assault, weapons, you name it,” Salazar said.

Building code enforcement inspectors went along on all the raids to inspect residences for violations. Officers also raided several Santa Ana bars with a history of criminal incidents, Salazar said. He said that 15 were closed down and that the majority have not reopened, due largely to the bar owners’ failure to correct code violations.

Salazar said the program should be extended after June because many dealers are “laying low” while the crackdown goes on. “If we totally disbanded, I think we’d be right back where we started,” he said.