Scores Arrested in Sweep of Drug Dealers

In an effort to cut back on street-corner drug dealing, San Diego police arrested 72 people Monday and Tuesday--and are searching for 32 more--for allegedly selling rock cocaine to undercover officers, authorities announced Wednesday.

“People were tired of drug dealers in the streets, and they wanted something done about it,” said Capt. Bill Taylor, head of the narcotics section.

Taylor said the department received more than 50 calls from angry residents, mostly from Southeast San Diego and City Heights, who felt threatened by the street dealers. The outcry led police to target these neighborhoods for “Operation Rock and Roll,” an undercover drug sweep conducted in October and November.

In the typical buy, a female undercover officer, wired for sound, would drive up to a street dealer and ask for a $20 rock of cocaine, Taylor said. The dealer would be videotaped by hidden camera while standing at the driver’s window.

The highest concentration of buys were made at the corner of 45th Street and Logan Avenue, and in the 4200 block of Euclid Avenue, Taylor said.

The tapes were presented as evidence to the county Grand Jury, which indicted 104 people for selling narcotics to undercover agents. After a few months of compiling paperwork, the warrants were issued and the arrests began this week.

The suspects face a maximum sentence of five years in state prison and three additional years if they have a previous conviction, said Bill Holman, chief of the district attorney’s office narcotics division.

Prosecutors say, however, that it is not unusual for a first-time offender to receive probation and one year at a local jail.

The latest sweep is the third in the past year, Taylor said. The first two targeted gang members, many of whom were sent to state prison on weapons and drug charges.

Of the 72 arrested, 15 are known gang members, said Richard Monroy, one of two deputy district attorneys working with police during the operation.

Grand jury indictments are a speedy, “innovative procedure” that cuts down the time it takes to bring people to trial, Holman said. Prosecutors also enacted a 1985 law requiring suspects charged with drug dealing to prove that their bail money came from legitimate sources by producing payroll stubs and bank account records.

As of Wednesday morning, none of those arrested had made bail, set at $10,000 to $110,000, depending on their records, Monroy said.

Taylor said drug distributors were not the target of the operation, although as much information as possible will be taken from suspects about their sources.

“When we take these people out of the communities in such large numbers as these,” Holman said, “I think we make as great an impact on the problem as taking one major trafficker off the street.

Holman said the district attorney’s office will take a “competitive stance” with the suspects, offering very few deals even if the suspects offer to reveal their sources.

“I think many of these people will be going to jail,” he said.

Arraignments were scheduled to begin Wednesday afternoon.