Saturday Night Show Stars Real Police in a Drug Sting

Given all the activity, not even the sweet aroma of his mother’s tacos de carnitas could keep young Ala Gomez Martinez off the streets Saturday night.

“Sure I’m hungry,” the Anaheim fourth-grader said, “but I can’t miss this. This is un buen show. “

The show that kept Gomez out of his mother’s kitchen was the almost weekly sting operation staged by undercover Anaheim police officers to rid a lower-income Latino neighborhood of drug peddlers.

Police contend that the five-square-block area, located just south of the Riverside Freeway and east of Harbor Boulevard and known locally as “the jungle,” has become one of the city’s most notorious dope-selling neighborhoods.

“It’s like a drive-in drugstore,” said Sgt. Harold Mittmann, head of the city’s special Street Crime Attack Team. “People from all over the county just drive through, buy what they want and leave. It’s that easy.”

Responding to complaints about such flagrant drug selling, Anaheim police last August began what was to become a controversial tactic to get dealers off the streets: They started posing as drug dealers and selling small amounts of cocaine and marijuana to unsuspecting buyers, later arresting them on misdemeanor possession charges.

“It’s all perfectly legal,” Mittmann said. “We’re here because the people who live here want their streets cleaned up.”

But the sting operation is not exactly a secret. In the small area of run-down apartment buildings and small homes where the police operate, the undercover officers are well-known to the local residents. And when they sweep in on one of their almost weekly stings, word travels fast among the Latino families in the area.

“Oh, sure, we all know about it,” said Claudia Martinez, 12, who was out for the Saturday night show. “All the boys like to watch the police chase the other men around the buildings.”

“I can point out all the narcs,” one boy said proudly. “One of them is over there, on the corner in the flannel shirt.”

When the police arrive, local drug pushers surrender the streets to them and return to their apartment balconies to join other spectators waiting for the action to begin. Young boys and girls, anticipating the wail of sirens and the action of arrests, hover on street corners while talking excitedly.

“It’s true everyone knows us here,” Mittmann conceded. “But we’re here to get the people who drive through looking to buy.”

Late Saturday, with five television crews and representatives from two newspapers and a radio station in tow, Mittmann escorted the press to the area to watch the sting.

As undercover officers casually strolled the streets posing as drug dealers, dozens of children watched from the street corners in packs, waiting for the bust to come down. Potential buyers drove slowly through the neighborhood, looking for a nod that signaled there was cocaine or marijuana for sale.

When a buy was made, usually by someone in a passing car, marked Anaheim police units swept in to block the road and the suspect was arrested. But because the amounts of drugs being sold were so small--$20 packets of marijuana and cocaine--all of the charges lodged were misdemeanors.

Eight people were arrested in the operation Saturday night.

“We’re not here to put a lot of people in jail,” Lt. Dave Severson said. “We’re here to help the neighborhood.”