21 Arrested in Cocaine Sales Sting in Inglewood

Twenty-one people were arrested on suspicion of buying rock cocaine Wednesday night during an undercover police operation in Inglewood, the city that warns drug purchasers: “Behind Your Rock Could Be a Cop.”

The sting was the 13th time in the last 17 months that Inglewood police have posed as drug dealers to sell rock cocaine to unsuspecting customers. About 300 people have been arrested in the sting operations, police officials said, and of those prosecuted, all but one have been convicted of buying drugs.

The city launched a publicity campaign in May warning that buying drugs in Inglewood “could put you between a rock and a hard place.” The message was printed on billboards, bus benches and bumper stickers.

“And some people still don’t believe it,” said Police Sgt. Harold Moret.

Wednesday’s operation, the first since the publicity campaign, began at about 7:30 p.m. when an undercover officer bought a quarter-gram of cocaine from two residents of a first-floor apartment at 3863 W. 104th St., said Lt. Larry Carter. The buy came after the police had received several complaints about drug dealing.

$5,000 Bail

Rene Flores Rosas, 26, and Aracely Palencia, 24, both of Mexico, were arrested on suspicion of selling cocaine and jailed in lieu of $5,000 bail each.

Several officers then entered the apartment while others hid outside to arrest drug buyers, Carter said.

Buyers arrived at the apartment every 15 minutes or so, usually passing cash through a barred kitchen window in exchange for quarter-gram “rocks” of cocaine, said the undercover officer making the sales, who identified himself in a telephone interview as Rudy.

One man said he could not pay the standard $20 and asked if he could trade $4 and a vest from a Las Vegas hotel for a rock. Rudy said he accepted.

“We would take anything that was realistic,” he said.

As buyers left, undercover officers waiting nearby would arrest them.

“We had a few moments when we had to shut down,” Rudy said, “because customers were coming so quickly and we did not want them to run into the arresting officers.”

Middle-Class Males

Customers ranged in age from 18 to 37; the average was 29. Nineteen of the 21 were men, police said. Five were from Inglewood, four from Hawthorne and three from Los Angeles. Others came from Lawndale, Torrance and Lynwood.

Most appeared to be middle-class workers buying small amounts of the drug for an evening’s entertainment, Carter said.

Many more people could have been arrested, he said, but the operation was closed down at 12:30 a.m. Thursday to prevent overloading the city jail.

Carter said the sting operations are designed to “drive the buyers out. There will always be people selling dope as long as there are people buying it. The only way we can attack the problem is by getting the people who are using it.”

The sting required intensive planning, Carter said.

After receiving a tip, police watched the apartment and observed several drug sales in order to get a search warrant from an Inglewood Municipal Court judge. To set up the sales operation, another judge signed an order releasing cocaine that had been seized in previous raids. Those rocks of cocaine were analyzed by the Sheriff’s Department crime laboratory before they were brought to the apartment for sale. Carter said the check was necessary because if the rocks turned out not to be cocaine, the drug-purchasing charges could have been thrown out.

Drug sales have been reduced substantially in the neighborhoods where sting operations have taken place, Carter said. “We get calls and letters from people all the time thanking us for doing it.”

But in some neighborhoods, Carter conceded, the drug dealers simply move down the street.

Many of those arrested in the Inglewood stings have been first-time offenders who received probation rather than jail sentences, Carter said. Most were ordered to enter drug diversion programs and will probably be forced to serve time in jail if they are caught with drugs again, he said.