Man Battling Drug Sales Tells His Frustration

A Pacoima man on trial for shooting a woman he believed was selling cocaine in front of his house testified Tuesday that he often called police and was “frustrated because nothing would work” to rid his neighborhood of drugs.

Joseph Calvin Grant, a 53-year-old retired truck driver, is on trial in San Fernando Superior Court on charges of assault with a deadly weapon in the Nov. 8, 1987, shooting of Lelatta Parks.

Grant, who pleaded not guilty to the charges, admitted firing his gun at Parks while she was standing at the corner of Montford Street and Welk Avenue. But he said he did not intend to hit her with the bullet, which grazed Parks’ right shoulder.

He testified that he had “aimed about a foot above her” to scare her.

Grant also said he had repeatedly called police and city officials, including Mayor Tom Bradley’s office, to report drug trafficking, but “no one did a thing. . . . It was totally useless.”

Traffic Backed Up

“I called them so often they knew my voice on the telephone,” Grant told the jury in the second day of his trial.

He said that there were three “crack houses” on his block and that drug peddling would cause traffic to back up for four blocks while deals were made in the streets.

“It was like a drive-in,” Grant said. “You could drive in, order what you want and take off.”

Los Angeles Police Officer Theodore Joesph Briseno testified that Grant’s neighborhood is “very heavy as far as trafficking and drug use.”

Grant said dealers would sit on his fence and take drugs, litter his yard and blare rock music at all hours of the day and night. “I was unable to sleep most of the time,” he testified. “I was worried about my family.”

Outside the jury’s presence, Judge Howard J. Schwab ruled that Grant’s 1973 grand theft conviction may be admitted as evidence. Grant pleaded guilty to the charge and was sentenced to three years of probation and fined $250, said his attorney, James E. Blatt.

Metals Resold

Blatt said the grand theft charge stemmed from an incident in which Grant resold some metals to a junkyard for “a couple hundred dollars” after he had been instructed by his employer to take them to a dump. The charge was later reduced to a misdemeanor, Blatt said.

Parks, who is in jail on a previous conviction for possession of drugs for sale, has refused to testify against Grant and has asserted her constitutional right against self-incrimination. But Schwab allowed Parks’ preliminary hearing testimony to be read to the jury and also allowed Parks to appear in court to demonstrate how she was standing when she was shot.

At the earlier hearing, Parks testified that she was not selling drugs, but was shot while she was standing near the curb talking to a friend who was seated in a car.

Under cross-examination, Grant testified that he could not hear Parks’ conversation but assumed that it involved a drug transaction.

A second assault charge against Grant was dismissed in August. He had been charged in the June 11 shooting of Marlon Clark, who Grant said was dealing drugs near his home.