War on Drugs Yields Sporty Spoils From Customers

Police Chief Daryl F. Gates held an auto show of sorts in MacArthur Park on Thursday.

There was a spiffy-looking BMW sedan. A sleek Toyota sports car. A flashy four-wheel-drive pickup. A shiny new Mercedes-Benz convertible, complete with a personalized, West German license plate that read “Feeling Free.” The license plate holder read “Life is Sweet.”

They were the sorts of vehicles that appeal to the yuppie set.

And that, Gates said regretfully, is where a lot of them came from.

The cars and trucks were among 38 vehicles confiscated by undercover Los Angeles police officers and agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration during a five-day crackdown on buyers and sellers of illegal drugs in the Pico-Union/Westlake/Rampart area, Gates said.

The chief said drug sales--often to well-employed, relatively affluent members of Southern California’s diverse community--had turned the park and its environs into a “blatant narcotics bazaar.”

Among the 35 adults arrested on suspicion of purchasing illegal drugs:

- A 28-year-old secretary at USC, booked on a marijuana count. Her brand-new Toyota was seized.

- A Hacienda Heights couple, 20 and 21, who brought their 2 1/2-year-old child with them on a marijuana-buying trip. Their sports truck was seized.

- Two paralegals, 20 and 26, each booked on a marijuana count. “We come here because it is so convenient,” one of the women reportedly told police. “This area is known everywhere.”

- Two Japanese citizens, 27 and 25, who were visiting Los Angeles on their honeymoon. Police said a tour guide took them to the park area after they asked him, “Where in Los Angeles do you buy marijuana?” All three were booked on marijuana counts. The guide’s sedan was seized.

Investigators said these and the other purchasers--most of them white-collar professionals--contrast starkly with the army of small-time drug vendors, most of whom are unemployed, homeless men from the tough neighborhood that surrounds the park.

In all, 20 suspected sellers were arrested during the crackdown. Gates said many of them were undocumented aliens from Mexico and El Salvador.

The vehicles were seized under federal forfeiture laws that permit police to confiscate the assets of those suspected of buying and selling drugs. Gates said the vehicles will be used by undercover officers or will be sold.

“We are going to show drug dealers and anyone else who would destroy our neighborhood that they are not welcome,” City Councilwoman Gloria Molina said at a news conference at the park with Gates and John Zenter, special agent in charge of the DEA’s Los Angeles office.

“We will wipe out their graffiti, dump their debris and take this community back,” she said. “We will be totally intolerant of anyone involved in a criminal activity.”

Police on Horseback

Molina said that at her behest, the Police Department beefed up patrols, adding mounted police in the park area and deploying a special task force of undercover officers near the Magnolia Avenue Elementary School, an area frequented by drug dealers and their clients.

“We brought a cleanup crew in,” Gates said. “And we’re going to bring in a maintenance crew of uniformed officers . . . to keep things clean. We’re not going to come in and then just walk away.”