Undercover Officers Make 27 Drug Arrests
Undercover Los Angeles police officers posing as drug dealers on two corners in Pacoima arrested 27 people in five hours, a haul so large the officers ran out of handcuffs, police said Wednesday.
Police made the arrests between 3:30 and 8:30 p.m. Tuesday at Van Nuys Boulevard and Pala Avenue and at Van Nuys and Ralston Avenue, said Capt. Valentino Paniccia.
Four suspected drug dealers were arrested at the intersections on suspicion of possession of cocaine and they were then replaced by undercover officers, Paniccia said.
The officers arrested 15 men and 8 women on suspicion of soliciting to buy cocaine when the suspects approached and asked for drugs, Paniccia said. “At one point we ran out of handcuffs,” Paniccia said.
The suspects came from throughout the San Fernando Valley, indicating that the area where the arrests were made is a well-known drug-purchasing site. Paniccia said police primarily focused on buyers during the operation in an effort to destroy the area’s reputation for drug sales.
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