Oceanside Drugs, Violence Blamed on Gang Invasion

Oceanside police say drug use and violence among the city’s long-established ethnic gangs have been overshadowed by the arrival of Crips gang members from Los Angeles and elsewhere looking to set up a permanent cocaine trade.

“We’re working three or four shootings by these new gangsters in town,” said Ruben Sandoval, a seven-year veteran of the police department’s gang unit, which was increased from two to four officers to handle the Crips.

According to Oceanside police reports, four incidents within a 10-day period in October reflected the violence that they believe has been brought by the newcomers:

- On Oct. 21, a woman was shot in the leg when she tried to stop gang members from using her apartment to sell drugs. She told investigating officers “that L.A. Crips gang members had been using her apartment to sell cocaine.”

- On Oct. 23, two women allege they were fired at by Crips after one of the women told a gang member her little brother would no longer sell drugs for them. A victim said in the police report that “L.A. Crips had recently moved into the Oceanside area and had taken up selling rock cocaine” from an apartment.

- On Oct. 28, a woman told police that four Los Angeles Crips forced their way into her apartment after beating up a man outside in a drug dispute. She said gang members had been trying to use her apartment as a base for drug sales.

- On Oct. 31, two local men were shot and wounded by two suspects. A police report said one victim recounted that his assailant had claimed to be a member of a Los Angeles gang. The shooting occurred when one of the men warned the gang members to stop selling cocaine from his sister’s apartment.

Such bloodshed has become commonplace in metropolitan areas like Los Angeles and San Diego. But drug-related violence by outsiders is new to the 130,000 people of Oceanside, where gang fighting was largely confined to Hispanic and Samoan gangs arguing over their turf.

Police say that about 15 to 20 Los Angeles-based Crips first came to Oceanside in the summer of 1988, selling cocaine from hotels and motels on the weekends, and returning to Los Angeles during the week.

They dealt drugs for six months until some were arrested; beefed up police patrols pressed most of the others to leave, evidenced by a sharp decline in cocaine sales, say police. “We were saturating the streets with 50 to 70 officers,” said Oceanside police Chief Lee Drummond.

A few months of peace followed, but last summer a new batch of Crips arrived.

“There were more of them,” said Sandoval, about 35 or 40, he estimated. Most came from Los Angeles, but police learned from driver’s licenses and vehicle registration that others came from San Bernardino, Lancaster and Perris.

“The difference is, they’re going into certain residential areas and buying off the homeowners by giving them drugs or paying them,” Sandoval said. The Crips live here, but resupply themselves with drugs from Los Angeles, he said.

An alarmed Drummond initiated a $20,000 study of the city’s gang problem by law enforcement consultants, including Manuel Ortega, police chief in Bell-Cudahy, and Lt. Paul Jefferson of the Los Angeles Police Department.

The study, released last month, concluded that “gang-related crime in Oceanside, while still largely confined to traditional turf wars, (has) recently taken on a distinctly more dangerous and criminal nature” because of the arrival of “predatory gangs.”

Oceanside police believe their city has attracted the Crips because it is located between Los Angeles and San Diego and it represents a new market for rock and crack cocaine. “If gone unchecked, they could set up a lucrative market here,” Drummond said.

A 20-year-old Oceanside woman, who used to sell crack bought from Los Angeles Crips living in Oceanside, said there’s opportunity here.

“The ones who come down here are small frys up there, but down here they’re really big,” said Leilani, who spoke on the condition that her street name and last name not be used. She said a quantity of cocaine that sells for $5 in Los Angeles gets $20 in Oceanside.

She said Crips enlist “rushers” who stand outside a crack house to make quick transactions with buyers who drive or walk buy, and also hire drug users to deal cocaine for them downtown.

“If their dope is good, each of five rushers can make $1,000 or more a day,” Leilani said. Crips “like to have 13- and 14-year-olds selling for them because when they get into trouble, they’re just going to juvenile hall, but they’re not going to do no big time.”

Sandoval said police have arrested more than 100 users and dealers over the last three months and 10 search warrants have been issued to enter suspected drug houses. Scores of arrests have been made around the 200 block of North Hill Street, where Rick Trevino, Sandoval’s partner for three years, said people working for the Crips were doing a brisk and highly visible business. “They were blatantly dealing,” said Trevino.

But downtown, cocaine street sales appear to have fallen over the last few weeks, and Sandoval believes the lull may be caused by the cold nights or the increased police enforcement.