Van de Kamp Seeks $13 Million to Combat Cocaine Trafficking

Calling for “a major expansion of the state’s role in narcotics enforcement,” Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp announced Thursday that he will seek $13 million for the creation of 14 investigative teams to combat cocaine trafficking by Colombian drug cartels and Los Angeles street gangs.

Criticizing the Bush Administration for making “blue-sky promises” but failing to commit additional drug-fighting resources to California, Van de Kamp said he will ask the Legislature to pay for 224 new state narcotics officers, analysts and auditors to be assigned to regional task forces based in Los Angeles and the Bay Area.

Van de Kamp said he has lined up bipartisan support for the program, dubbed “CrackDown,” which would begin Jan. 1. The $13 million would pay for the teams for six months, with the yearly cost reaching $22 million, he said.

The announcement came one day after Republican Sen. Pete Wilson, considered the front-runner in the 1990 gubernatorial race, proposed a $4-billion federal bond program to finance the Bush Administration’s anti-drug campaign, which is to be unveiled next month by drug czar William J. Bennett.

Van de Kamp, a Democratic candidate for governor, said he did not wait to see what Bennett proposes because he wants to get a bill that would provide the necessary funding passed by the Sept. 15 close of the legislative session.

“We’ve heard glowing promises before only to be disappointed,” Van de Kamp said. “The cold, hard truth is we can no longer wait for federal action.”

Under his proposal, 114 peace officers and 110 civilian employees would be hired to staff nine teams--six of them in Southern California. While those teams focus on major drug trafficking investigations, three other teams would investigate money laundering and two “mobile street-gang response teams” would help local officials combat “crack” cocaine sales by gangs in smaller cities and rural areas.

The teams would steer away from investigations of simple street sales in which officers, for instance, saturate a park and “make 100 arrests in an afternoon,” Van de Kamp said.

The attorney general’s proposal follows two reports this year suggesting that Los Angeles is supplanting Miami as the nation’s drug distribution center.

DEA officials concluded that while Miami remained the nation’s favorite import point for the drug, about 40% of the cocaine entering the United States was being shipped to the Los Angeles area.

Earlier this month, a report released by U.S. Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh said Los Angeles gang members are spreading their “crack” trade into every corner of the nation.

At a press conference in Los Angeles, Van de Kamp displayed a chart showing that while the Federal Reserve’s cash surplus has been declining in Miami, it has been rising sharply in Los Angeles since 1985, a trend believed to reflect cash deposits in banks by drug dealers.

Another chart showed that Florida, during the same period, had more than twice as many federal and state drug agents as California, when measured against population.

“Because we have relied on the federal government to control international smuggling, California has traditionally been very weak in that area,” Van de Kamp said.

Van de Kamp said his proposal is supported by law enforcement officials throughout the state, including Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates and Sheriff Sherman Block.

He said the bill to provide the funding will be carried in the Senate by President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) and Sen. Ed Davis (R-Valencia), the former Los Angeles police chief. Its Assembly co-authors are Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles) and Sunny Mojonnier (R-Encinitas).