PCP Made Him Do Crazy Things--Like Surrender

It must have seemed like a good idea at the time.

The time was 10 minutes before six, last Saturday morning, when a man paused outside the front door of the Rampart police station, lighted a PCP cigarette, then walked in and told the desk officer he wanted to be arrested and jailed for 90 days, to kick the habit.

Arrests don’t come any easier than that, and even before the ether fumes from the cigarette had cleared, Alan H. Arredondo, 24, who police say is a gang member nicknamed Lizard, was booked and on his way to jail. “He was the judge, jury and everything--he doesn’t need us,” said Lt. Ron Dina.

Such a surrender “surprises you, because you don’t expect it,” said Dina, who had to take a couple of aspirin to clear the headache left by the smoldering cigarette.

“You sit here all night, officers bring in suspects for grand theft auto and burglary and everything else,” he said, and then “somebody walks in the front door, not just to surrender on a warrant, but here a guy is committing a felony . . . right here in the lobby of the police station.”

In Dina’s nearly 18 years with the LAPD, it was only the second or third time he had seen it happen. And he knows he didn’t dream it--the cigarette left a scorch mark on the counter, where police say Arredondo laid it down in front of them.

“He told us he lit it right outside the door, on the sidewalk,” said Dina. “I guess he wanted to have a last hit before he cleaned up. . . . I hope he means it. . . . I hope he will clean himself up.”

Dina will have to wait a while to find out. On Wednesday, according to a court clerk, Arredondo, still in custody on $7,500 bail, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment on a felony charge of possession of PCP.