A War of Skirmishes : Police victories often fall victim to bureaucratic red tape, legal rules, plea bargaining and jail crowding.

Mysterious cartels, warehouses filled with tons of snowy white powder, film-at-11 police raids--this is the war on drugs that the public is commonly shown.

Last year, the Los Angeles Police Department seized 49,198 pounds of cocaine--compared to 758 pounds in 1984--prompting many authorities to declare Southern California the nation’s cocaine capital.

The war on drugs in Los Angeles, however, does not usually involve intrigue, sophisticated kingpins and major busts.

More often, it is a little-noticed campaign of skirmishes between street cops and small-time suspects arrested for possessing or peddling minute quantities of narcotics:

The car was speeding through an alley in South-Central Los Angeles shortly after midnight on April 24 when the police officers spotted it. That the driver, Dennis Bolts III, was ignoring the speed limit was bad enough. That he was driving with no headlights on was even worse.

The officers gave chase as Bolts, 21, stepped on the gas.

Four blocks later, with the police cruiser close on his tail, Bolts whipped his car into a sharp right turn and jumped out. The car kept going, crashing into a wall of the Bethel African Methodist Church on Western Avenue.

The police found Bolts a few minutes later, hiding in some bushes. In his pocket they found $207 in cash. In his car, they discovered a loaded .22-caliber revolver, a brown paper bag with another $800 in cash and what appeared to be 16 rocks of cocaine.

The district attorney charged Bolts with evading a police officer, carrying a loaded firearm, reckless driving and possession for sale of cocaine, a charge punishable by two, three or four years in state prison.

Had the district attorney requested and the Police Department conducted a laboratory test to confirm that the cocaine was, in fact, rock cocaine, Bolts could have been charged with “possession for sale of cocaine base,” which is punishable by three, four or five years in state prison.

As a teen-ager, Bolts had been arrested for armed robbery, sale of marijuana and possession of cocaine, probation records show. This was his first adult conviction. As it turned out, he need not have concerned himself about the possibility of going to prison.

After agreeing to plead guilty to possession of cocaine and possessing a loaded gun, a misdemeanor, he was fined $50 by Judge Dino J. Fulgoni and sentenced on May 30 to 180 days in the County Jail.

With various credits, Bolts served about seven weeks and was released.

Two months after Bolts was sentenced, Deputy Dist. Atty. Kenneth L. Marks, who prosecuted him, said he could remember nothing of the case, let alone the plea arrangement.

“I have a lot of cases,” Marks said. “After a while, they all kind of blend.”

After receiving complaints last year from neighbors that Eloise Kennon was dealing drugs out of her home in South-Central Los Angeles, narcotics officers raided the place. Inside, they seized two tonic water bottles filed with 14 fluid ounces of the drug PCP.

Kennon, according to court records, had been selling PCP-laced cigarettes for more than eight months.

She was charged with maintaining a place to sell controlled substances and possession for sale of PCP--crimes that together carry a maximum eight years in prison.

The district attorney’s office also filed a “special allegation” against Kennon, under which anyone found with more than 14 1/4 grams (one-half ounce) of PCP must go to prison. The amount of PCP found in Kennon’s house was 269 grams.

Kennon, 43, had been arrested at least 16 times since 1964, four times for possession of heroin, PCP or other dangerous drugs, records show. She had done at least four brief stints in the County Jail and had not held a legitimate job in 10 years.

“In order to send a loud and clear message to those who engage in illicit sales of this dangerous substance,” a probation officer wrote, “state prison is felt the only reasonable recommendation. . . . Defendant is ineligible for probation.”

But that is exactly what Kennon got.

In May, 1989, citing problems with evidence, the district attorney’s office allowed Kennon to plead guilty to a charge of possession for sale, and all other charges were dropped. Superior Court Judge J.D. Smith, a former Los Angeles police officer, then sentenced her to six months in jail to be followed by five years’ probation.

The judge also ordered that Kennon undergo periodic drug testing and pay a $100 fine, but she did neither after being released from jail.

Smith revoked Kennon’s probation in April, 1990, and she was arrested six weeks later. When a probation officer suggested that Kennon consider serving as a “positive role model for her children . . . she stated: ‘My kids are on probation, too. If I have to go to jail, how long will I have to be in there for?’ ”

Smith sentenced Kennon to two years in state prison for violating probation, then immediately suspended the sentence and ordered her probation reinstated. She was released from jail after serving five days.

She remains on probation.

“She had some serious medical problems--a stroke, I think,--and a real lightweight record,” Smith said in explaining Kennon’s case. “We gave her a break based on her pathetic problems.”

By the time he came to the United States in 1980 via Fidel Castro’s infamous Mariel boat lift, Adolfo Echevaria had already spent 15 years in a Cuban prison for burglary. After doing jail time on an assault conviction in New Jersey, Echevaria resettled in Los Angeles in 1988.

Within weeks of arriving, the 45-year-old Marielito was arrested near MacArthur Park for possession of a pipe and two rocks of cocaine. Instead of being jailed, he was ordered to attend a drug diversion program--but never showed up.

In January, 1989, Echevaria was arrested again after officers on routine patrol caught him with 11 rocks of cocaine in his pocket. He was given one year of formal probation and a year in the County Jail. He was out less than three months later.

Between April and May, 1989, Echevaria was arrested twice on suspicion of robbery but the district attorney declined to file either case. Available records do not indicate details of the crimes or the reasons they were rejected by the D.A.’s office.

Court files do show that Echevaria’s arrest constituted a violation of his probation. But his probation was not revoked.

A month later, in June, 1989, he was arrested once more--for possession of two rocks of cocaine. Although his previous felony drug conviction made him potentially ineligible for probation, Echevaria was sentenced to probation upon completing a year in County Jail.

Back on the street in February of this year, Echevaria was picked up for possession of drug paraphernalia--a rock pipe--but not charged.

Two months later, Chun Chai-Huang was stopped at a pay phone near MacArthur Park when three men approached him. One crooked his arm around Chun’s throat; another jabbed a folding knife at Chun’s stomach, threatening to kill him if he moved.

The robbers took his watch, some cash and a distinctive gold cigarette lighter.

Chun called the police. Echevaria was found nearby. In his pocket, officers found a folding knife and Chun’s lighter. Chun positively identified Echevaria.

The district attorney charged Echevaria with second-degree robbery and use of a deadly weapon.

His public defender argued that the arrest was unconstitutional because officers had told Chun that his lighter was found on Echevaria before Chun identified Echevaria as his attacker. Judge George W. Trammell agreed and dismissed the case.

Echevaria could have been prosecuted for violating probation, according to probation officials, but the prosecutor in the case never bothered to pursue it.

“It probably wouldn’t have held up,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert L. Grace Jr.

Echevaria was freed June 5.

Phillip Ramon Hull, 34, was arrested in March, 1989, for selling $20 worth of rock cocaine to an undercover Los Angeles police officer. Superior Court Judge Ernest M. Hiroshige sentenced him to three years in state prison, then suspended the sentence and gave Hull probation plus 180 days in County Jail.

“What that means,” Hiroshige warned Hull, “is that . . . in all likelihood if you violate probation in the future, you’re going to get the state prison sentence.”

Hiroshige, as it turned out, could not have been more wrong.

After Hull was released from jail, he never reported to the Probation Department as required. A bench warrant was issued for his arrest in August, 1989.

In March of this year, Hull was caught ransacking the offices of a Hollywood modeling agency. He was charged with burglary and having violated his probation--a “double-barrel” prosecution. The case was transferred to Superior Court Judge Clarence (Red) Stromwall.

On May 24, after Hull agreed to plead guilty to both charges, Stromwall sentenced him to a year in jail, plus another year for violating probation. The judge ordered that the sentences be served concurrently, meaning that instead of two years, Hull would do only one. Then, Stromwall credited Hull with 288 days for time already served, records show.

That left 77 days on Hull’s sentence--but he would not stay in jail nearly that long.

His sentence automatically was reduced by 26 days for behaving himself.

One day was subtracted because he made a court appearance.

Another five days were trimmed under a penal code that allows sheriffs with overcrowded jails to reduce sentences by one day for every 10 served, for a maximum of five days’ credit.

Finally, Hull benefited from what is euphemistically known as the “65% solution.” To comply with federal guidelines to relieve jail overcrowding, the Sheriff’s Department lopped off 35% of Hull’s remaining sentence.

He ended up serving 29 of the 77 days.

Sentences for Drug Felonies

A large percentage of felony drug sentences in Los Angeles County are for jail time rather than prison terms as prescribed by law.

Sale of Narcotics

1 yr or less: 70%

3 years: 21%

4 years: 6%

5 years: 3%

Narcotics Possession for Sale

1 yr or less: 65%

2 years: 24%

3 years: 6%

4 years: 5%

Sale of Marijuana

1 yr or less: 75%

2 years: 16%

3 years: 7%

4 years: 1%

Rock Cocaine Possession for Sale

1 yr or less: 74%

3 years: 15%

4 years: 7%

5 years: 4%

Narcotics Possession

1 yr or less: 73%

16 months: 17%

2 years: 7%

3 years: 3%

Source: Times research

Sentences for Non-Drug Crimes

Examples of four felony categories for which prison terms are prescribed by law show that there is wide variation in actual sentencing in Los Angeles County.

Auto Theft*

1 yr or less: 57%

16 months: 14%

2 years: 19%

3 years: 10%

Grand Theft**

1 yr or less: 65%

16 months: 13%

2 years: 19%

3 years: 3%

Commercial Burglaries (2nd degree)

1 yr or less: 45%

2 years: 45%

4 years: 6%

6 years: 4%

Assault With Deadly Weapon

1 yr or less: 44%

2 years: 15%

3 years: 20%

4 years: 20%

Source: Times research

* Filed as taking vehicle without permisson

** By statute, grand theft is theft of anything worth $400 or more. However, the L.A. County D.A.’s office usually will not file such charges unless the amount of loss exceeds $1,000--double that if the perpetrator has a clean arrest record.