Girl, 13, Boy, 15 Among 7 Held for Crack Sales : Drugs: Undercover officers arrest the teens and five adults on charges of dealing along an entire block in Anaheim. ‘Parents should be aware of their children’s lives,’ they say.

Undercover officers arrested a 13-year-old girl, a 15-year-old boy and five adults for selling crack cocaine near an Anaheim elementary school, police said Saturday.

The girl is a onetime gang member who told officers that she earned $5 for every $20 piece of crack cocaine she sold, or would get a “rock” for her own use, Anaheim Police Sgt. Joe Vargas said.

The 15-year-old boy allegedly sold crack for a small-time drug dealer, who also was arrested, Vargas said.

“People keep thinking that this stuff only happens on the streets of downtown Los Angeles,” Vargas said. “But this is a suburb in Orange County and the thing is that parents should be aware of their children’s lives and educated to the symptoms of drug abuse.”

The arrests were made Friday in the 200 block of West Guinida Lane, which is within 1,000 feet of Paul Revere Elementary School, which was in session.

The arrests were part of an enforcement drug operation using undercover and uniformed officers that began at 5:30 a.m. Friday and ended about 6 p.m. The area has numerous apartment complexes and is in a predominantly low-income neighborhood.

“The operation included the entire length of the block,” Vargas said. “We saw people buying and selling and we observed numerous people using drugs, particularly with rock cocaine. In many cases, there wasn’t any attempt to hide that they were smoking it.”

The unidentified girl was at first not identified as a “player” in crack street sales on West Guinida Lane, Vargas said.

“But as the operation went on, surveillance officers saw her holding money, engaged in sales and watched her light up a pipe and smoke crack cocaine,” he said.

The girl told police she had been addicted to crack cocaine since she was 11 years old. Anaheim officers said she was among the youngest drug suspects they have arrested. Several years ago, police arrested a 10-year-old boy for sales of cocaine in the old Chevy Chase area of Anaheim, Vargas said. “The fascinating part,” Vargas said of the girl, “was that after her arrest we talked with her about how she developed her drug habit. Basically, she told us that since she was age 11, she’s been using marijuana, crack and PCP. We were surprised with the fact that she was able to hide this from her parents and her school. At the time, she was in the sixth grade.”

Police said the girl attended school only sporadically and had been living at home with her parents.

In addition to the two minors, police arrested Jose Hernandez Mendez, 30; Javier Marquez, 26; Juan Miguel Nunez, 28; Tony Torres, 29, and Pearl Mae Kelly, 22, on suspicion of felony sale and possession of narcotics, Vargas said. They were booked at the Anaheim Police Department.

Mendez was also also charged for alleged use of a minor to sell drugs.

Police described the suspects as “low-level” street dealers, many of whom were allegedly using sales to sustain their own drug habits.

Only the 13-year-old was identified as living in an apartment in the neighborhood. Vargas said she was a member of a local girl gang but had been “jumped out” because of her drug use.

The other suspects were from other Anaheim neighborhoods who had apparently sought out West Guinida Lane because it was a convenient and safe area to conduct drug sales, Vargas said.

“When street dealers go into a certain area, it tells me that there are certain environmental factors that draw them to that area,” Vargas said. Such factors include poor street lighting and residents who ignore the dealers or do not call police. By doing so, residents allow the dealers to conduct their trade with impunity, he said.

The sweep involved Anaheim’s Community Action Policing Team, and street narcotics and vice details. The idea, Vargas said, is that with the city’s help, residents can have an opportunity to “take back” their neighborhood.

The approach previously was used in the Avon Place-Dakota Street neighborhood of East Anaheim where a neighborhood council of parents and apartment owners was formed. The city helped with additional street lights and code enforcement of housing violations, Vargas said.