Cities Turn to Courts to Fight Drug War in Civil Way

As rock cocaine became more popular in the 1980s, cities began turning to the civil courts to fight the war on drugs and reclaim neighborhoods.

Fountain Valley this week joined that growing number of cities taking civil actions when it obtained a preliminary injunction against condo owner Garrie Charles Culver.

“Things are changing,” said Los Angeles Police Officer Mark Severino, whose FALCON Unit was set up two years ago to target property owners in making improvements, such as installing lighting or fencing, to help curtail drug sales.

“You are going to see more civil laws utilized a lot more these days because narcotics are so prevalent,” Severino said.

In Oakland, the city attorney’s office has brought 20 civil cases against property owners in the last two years, Assistant City Atty. Charles E. Vose said.

The owners, regardless of whether they have ever been arrested, are targeted after police find a combination of factors, Vose said. These can include neighbors’ complaints about drug activity and a large number of people and cars frequenting the home or people found under the influence of drugs on the property.

The Los Angeles city attorney’s office has tried similar methods to combat gangs by obtaining injunctions against gang members with the threat of civil contempt proceedings if they misbehave.

Federal drug agents, armed with asset forfeiture laws, have seized property suspected of having been bought with drug money even when the owner has not been charged or indicted. In April, for example, authorities seized a $3-million Malibu home owned by an attorney suspected of performing legal services for an international drug-smuggling operation.

In Oakland, Vose said, the city evicted residents who violated a preliminary injunction to stop illegal activity. He obtained another court order to close the property for one year.

“We went out and evicted the tenants . . . (who) were involved in drug activity,” Vose said. “We boarded it up and evicted them. It’s a ghost town.”

Fountain Valley Officer Paul McInnis, who investigated complaints against Culver and his sister-in-law, Laura Ann Riley, said he has no doubt Culver is selling illegal drugs, although police failed to find enough drugs in three searches to make felony arrests.

In court documents, McInnis describes neighbors’ numerous complaints about drug activity at Culver’s house and the undercover operations that followed.

Both Culver and Riley have been cited for alleged drug misdemeanors.

Last year, McInnis testified, he received a call from an informant who said Riley and her boyfriend sold drugs from the detached garage of the Culver condominium.

McInnis also cited previous complaints in 1991, one of them from a mother who said she saw her daughter inhale a “white powdery substance into her nostrils.” The mother said she learned from her daughter that the powder had been purchased at the Culver’s garage, he said in court documents.