Wilmington Fearful as Cocaine Dealers Grow More Brazen

They stand on street corners, cluster in poorly lighted corridors and alleys and occasionally operate out of an apartment or bungalow.

They approach housewives driving to the supermarket, police officers cruising in unmarked cars, and teen-agers walking home from school.

They’ve mugged a mail carrier, smashed the ribs of a man visiting from out of town, and have even showed up at meetings of frightened residents who want them out of the community.

They are rock dealers--sellers of a highly concentrated, crystallized form of cocaine--and they are slowly wresting control of this harbor-front community from intimidated residents and a beleaguered police force.

‘Staking Their Claim’

“People are seeing drug deals going on across the street and next door, and they are asking, ‘Why is this happening to me?’ “said Abelardo de la Pena Jr., who bought a home in Wilmington in May. “Wilmington has traditionally been a dumping ground for toxic wastes and refineries, and now the drug dealers are staking their claim.”

Narcotics arrests in the harbor area during the first five months of this year are up 37% over the same period last year, police said. So-called “repressible crimes”--burglary, robbery and car thefts--which police say are often drug-related, are up 30%--the largest percentage increase in the city of Los Angeles, said Harbor Division Police Capt. Dennis Conte.

Although separate statistics for Wilmington are not available, Conte said the vast majority of the 798 narcotics arrests in the harbor area during the five-month period were made in Wilmington. Similarly, the increase in drug-related crime centered on Wilmington, he said.

Police estimate that, collectively, rock dealers take in $50,000 to $100,000 a night peddling small pellets of the extremely addictive drug in Wilmington, primarily at the Dana Strand Village housing project and on East O Street between Watson and Drumm avenues.

Expected to Get Worse

Police make drug-related arrests daily at the two locations, and with a successful crackdown on rock dealers 12 miles to the north in the city of Inglewood, police fear the problem can only get worse as displaced dealers search for a new haven for their illicit trade.

“We are trying to make do with what we have, but it is a classic case of trying to combat too much with too little,” Conte said. “We fully admit and acknowledge that we don’t have the personnel resources to supply a constant enforcement, and that is what is really needed.”

Police and community leaders say the rock “epidemic,” as it is commonly called here, has shaken the foundation of a community that long ago grew accustomed to adversity and hard times. Unlike other battles against industries spewing chemicals into the air or spilling wastes in the streets, residents fighting rock dealers face a fragmented enemy that ranges from rich customers on the Palos Verdes Peninsula to suppliers in Long Beach to the teen-age dealer in the apartment next door.

“The problem is enormous, and it has become very explicit and overt,” said Peter Mendoza, president of the Wilmington Home Owners, a group that formed last year to tackle a growing inventory of community problems. “The deals are now going down right in front of everybody. We want our community back. We aren’t going to let them take it away from us.”

Solution Elusive

Finding a way to regain control of the community, however, has eluded residents and police alike. The Los Angeles Unified School District has begun a free summer education and job-training program for residents of harbor-area housing projects, largely in response to the increasing crime rate among youth in the area, and numerous agencies offer counseling programs for drug addicts.

But as long as the demand for rock exists, police say dealers--many of whom live outside of Wilmington--will continue to inundate the community with the drug. According to police, the rock cocaine crisis in Wilmington is one that is being repeated in other communities nationwide.

National Cocaine Hotline officials estimate the drug, which first hit the streets about five years ago in South-Central Los Angeles, is widely used in 17 cities. About 5,000 people a day try rock cocaine, half of whom become addicted, hot-line officials said.

“Money is what it is all about,” said police Officer Phil Gasca, who lives in Wilmington and patrols the drug-infested areas of the community. “They are making big money . . . and they feel nobody is standing up to them.”

Police Ask for Help

Police have asked residents who witness drug deals to jot down license plate numbers, descriptions of dealers and “stash” locations--places where dealers hide the cocaine when police arrive. In an effort to concentrate their enforcement on major offenders, police have advised residents not to waste time giving information on buyers, most of whom also come from outside the community.

But even with the tips, police acknowledge they still are unable to follow up on all leads and some residents complain that the drug sales resume as soon as the police leave.

Several weeks ago, a man visiting relatives in the East O Street area was severely beaten by a group of dealers after he called the police because they broke his car window. The man apparently had refused to buy drugs from a determined dealer, police said.

Mail delivery was halted for two days last March to about 80 apartments at the Dana Strand project after a mail carrier was attacked and robbed and a second carrier was threatened. Police and neighborhood residents blame the problems on drug dealing.

“Everyone has a horror story to tell, each one worse than the one before,” Mendoza said. “We’ve heard it over and over again.”

Attract Attention

Even so, De La Pena, Mendoza and other members of the homeowners’ organization say the community can do something. If nothing else, they say, residents should vent their frustration in a way that will attract some attention.

With that in mind, De La Pena and a committee of about a dozen other residents who belong to the homeowners group have proposed a rally that they hope will attract thousands of Wilmington’s 50,000 residents.

At a homeowners’ meeting last week, De La Pena announced to a crowd of 250 at Banning Park Recreation Center that the organization will sponsor two demonstrations on Aug. 9--one at the Dana Strand Village and one in the neighborhood of East O Street. The target audience: buyers and sellers of rock cocaine.

The demonstrations, under the name “Wilmington Rocks Out,” are intended to bring the community together in collective outrage over the growing drug problem. Residents would like more police officers (four narcotics officers and 152 other officers cover the 145,000 residents of San Pedro, Wilmington and Harbor City area), but they also want to let the dealers and buyers know that the community is united in its opposition to the narcotics traffic.

Supported by Police

The demonstrations have been endorsed by the Harbor Division of the police department, which is eager to solicit the help of residents in the battle against rock. While the demonstrations themselves may not rid Wilmington of its drug problem, they could serve as a symbolic beginning to a partnership between police and residents, police said.

“We share their frustration,” said Conte, who is commanding officer of the harbor-area patrol division. “We feel exactly the same way. I sympathize with the fact that their children can’t go out and play without a dope dealer selling narcotics in plain view of them. . . . People don’t want to see the area turn to hell, and that is exactly what is going to happen if we don’t do something.”

The first of the two demonstrations on Aug. 9 is scheduled for 1 p.m. at Holy Family Church at the corner of L Street and Sanford Avenue. The second, scheduled for 3 p.m., begins at the Wilmington Recreation Center, 325 Neptune Ave.

Fliers bearing the “Wilmington Rocks Out” logo, which features a skull and crossbones as the “k” in rocks, have been printed in English and Spanish. The flier calls on residents to join in “showing our anger toward the drug dealers and buyers, and our support for the good people of those neighborhoods, as well as police efforts now taking place to get rid of the problem.”

No Miracles Expected

Organizers of the rallies, familiar with the dynamics of everyday life in Wilmington, said they aren’t expecting miracles. Disappointment has been a way of life for many of them, but if one high-ranking public official--Mayor Tom Bradley or Gov. George Deukmejian, for example--publicly recognizes their struggle, they would feel a sense of accomplishment, they said.

“The local Los Angeles Police Department certainly seems to be doing all it can,” Mendoza said. “The problem is at a higher level. If the city of Los Angeles turns it back on the community, we have no choice but to look for other alternatives.”