Now What, After Drug Scandal and Big Bust? : Law enforcement: Retrenchment is the watchword on one front of the Los Angeles-area drug wars, but federal asset-seizure laws provide incentive for continued police cooperation in the fight against traffickers.

With a record bust and growing scandal, it has hardly been a routine time on the front lines of the Los Angeles drug wars.

The discovery of 21 tons of cocaine in Sylmar and suspension of 18 sheriff’s investigators have focused very different sorts of attention on the police units that match wits with major drug traffickers, prompting a re-evaluation by some, gloating by others and--inevitably in the society of cops--some humor.

In Brea, officials have reigned in their roving four-officer drug squad, one of the glitzy units that popped up in recent years to take advantage of asset-seizure laws. The problem? They spent much of their time backing up a Sheriff’s Department team that now is suspected of skimming off cocaine cash.

“We’re back to doing pretty much local stuff,” said Brea Capt. Jim Oman. “We’re kind of catching our breath and seeing what’s going on.”

But retrenchment is hardly the mood at the Quad City Task Force, made up of officers from four police departments in southeast Los Angeles County. After long doing the anonymous grunt work of investigations, task force members pulled off the World’s Largest Drug Bust.

So, “Now that we’re kind of on the map,” as Sgt. Ralph Freeze put it, they’ve given themselves a new job--they want to rename their unit.

Brea police were among the first in Southern California to recognize the potential of the 1984 federal law that enabled local police to claim as much as 90% of the cash and other assets they confiscate in criminal investigations.

That year, they formed a “special enforcement division” and one of the officers began using a seized red Corvette to help him infiltrate drug rings throughout the region.

Although Brea is in Orange County, the unit often worked with a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department drug squad based in Whittier. It was a type of cooperative effort that grew common as narcotics trafficking in the area broadened, with suspects stashing their drugs and money in several communities and frequently moving around.

“We had a couple of big cases (alone), but 90% of the stuff we were doing was backup,” Capt. Oman said.

His officers helped on tedious stakeouts and followed suspects, whether they headed for the San Fernando Valley or Las Vegas. “They got on the road and never knew where they were going,” Oman said.

The efforts paid off. The city now is waiting for its share of $4 million the unit helped seize.

But when Sheriff Sherman Block announced Sept. 1 that his drug squad was being disbanded, after a “sting” in which deputies were said to have been videotaped diverting cash, the news had added impact in Brea. The Brea crew had been backing up Block’s squad at the raid at the Valley Hilton in Sherman Oaks that turned out to be a setup by federal authorities.

Oman said he and Police Chief Donald L. Forkus questioned their officers and were satisfied they had been isolated from any wrongdoing. But “most of our people were very shook up how this could have happened literally under their nose,” he said. They decided to scale back.

Brea Mayor Gene Leyton said the decision was made by police alone. He added: “As a city, we’re not trying to become the narcotics enforcement agency for Southern California. . . . We don’t want them working in San Diego or Santa Barbara unless it has some relativity to us.”

Oman sees it as necessary, but unfortunate in a way.

“The trend on these cases, they seem to be getting bigger and bigger quantities of the drugs and it takes some cooperation,” he said.

“Something like this, suspicions of theft . . . this sets the whole thing back.”

When police from Maywood, Bell-Cudahy and Huntington Park formed a joint drug squad last year, they named it the Tri Cities Task Force. South Gate joined in this year, and they changed the name to Quad Cities.

But when four leaders of the team gathered late last week at the Huntington Park Police Station, Sgt. Andy Key of South Gate argued that they now needed a new name “without a numerical.” That way, it would stick even if one city drops out, or another joins the force.

“SEANET,” he proposed. “The Southeast Area Narcotics Enforcement Team.”

Detective Bill Huffman of Huntington Park wasn’t sure. “It’s going to be hard to break the habit,” he said.

The cities originally formed the squad for a couple of reasons. Their police departments are relatively small--Maywood has only 25 sworn officers--and the few officers each assigned to drug enforcement found it impossible to dent even the local problems working alone. In addition, they couldn’t help but notice how other departments, such as Brea’s, were adding small fortunes to their coffers by going after “major violators.”

The 10 officers eventually assembled in the Quad Cities Task Force still had to handle “street dope” cases, periodically arresting pushers at the corner parks or raiding rock houses. But they also agreed to help U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents who were investigating trucks suspected of carrying drugs. The Southeast Los Angeles area was a natural focal point with its freeways, industrial areas and truck stops.

Soon the detectives found themselves on six-day stakeouts, sitting in cars eating junk food and reading the same newspaper over and over. Freeze, who is from Bell, celebrated his birthday in a parking lot.

One stakeout helped Orange County authorities seize 300 kilograms of cocaine, and another 249 kilogram seizure followed. The results all went “on the board,” a blackboard where they tallied arrests, money and drug seizures.

Relations were good with the DEA agents, all agreed. “At no point did they say, ‘OK, we’ll work it alone from here,’ ” Huffman said.

But there was some conflict with Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates after one of their surveillance operations, prompted by a tip to a federal agent, led to the discovery of $12.2 million in cash and truckloads of cocaine in the Sylmar warehouse on Sept. 28. Police chiefs from the four cities grew furious when they perceived the glory going to Gates and his officers, who were called in to assist only at the last moment.

By the time of their meeting in Huntington Park, however, the task force members were no longer worried about “the little guy” being overlooked.

Freeze announced that a local elementary school was honoring his officers that afternoon. And plans were being made for all the cities to throw a big party for task force members and their spouses.

“You know,” mused Key, “there could have been no money at that warehouse.”

“And no one would have heard of it,” said Freeze.

A belt beeper went off. The DEA was summoning. Huffman left to phone, then returned with the news.

“Anyone want to go to El Paso on Monday?” he asked.

In few places is there as much sympathy for what the Sheriff’s Department is going through as at the Los Angeles offices of the DEA. Last year, three former agents were indicted for conspiracy to traffic in cocaine and heroin. A $3-million bank account belonging to one of them recently was seized by authorities in Luxembourg.

When the sheriff’s suspensions were announced, the special agent in charge of the DEA office, John M. Zienter, called Block to commiserate. “They went bad, the agency didn’t,” he said.

“Last year it was our turn at bat,” said one agent. “Now the sheriff is at bat. Next year it will be someone else.”

Despite such somber reflection, there is room for a bit of humor, even about such matters.

Maywood Police Chief Ted Heidke recalled how he rushed to the Sylmar warehouse in the middle of the night after the Quad Cities crew called him about the raid there, then found himself “standing in the corner, where there’s all this money. Bundle after bundle of $100 bills.

“I was looking at one of the guys next to me and I said, ‘Check me out a million and a half,’ and I picked up one of the bundles. And he said, ‘No, no. That one’s mine.’ ”

On the other hand, two sheriff’s deputies joked quite differently last week about their roles on a task force in which they work beside DEA agents and other Los Angeles-area narcotics detectives.

“We don’t touch the money,” said Deputy Randy Petee, holding up his hands.

“We see money,” added Deputy Larry Swanson, “and we run.”