17 Redondo Students Arrested in Undercover Drug Operation : Schools: Sheriff’s deputies posed as teenagers for three months. The sting could lead to more trafficking arrests.

After a three-month undercover operation during which sheriff’s deputies posed as drug-buying high schoolers, 17 students at Redondo Beach Union High were called into the principal’s office Thursday and arrested on narcotics trafficking charges.

Another seven or eight students may be arrested in the next few days as a result of the sting, which was conducted by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the Redondo Beach Police Department, authorities said.

Principal Bob Paulson said the undercover officers were brought onto the campus after guidance counselors complained that some once-diligent students were coming to class on drugs. Redondo Beach Police Chief Mel Nichols said the arrests--all for on-campus drug sales or possession with intent to sell--reveal a problem at the 1,650-student school but said it did not seem great.

“I don’t think it’s overwhelming. If we had arrested 150, I’d say we had a real problem,” he said.

A 1983 sting operation at the school resulted in 54 arrests. Earlier this fall, five students at Mira Costa High School in nearby Manhattan Beach were arrested on similar charges before students got wind of the sting; the operation was halted after three weeks.

Fifteen of the 17 arrested Thursday are juveniles, police said. Their names were not released. Two, Michael Pagaling and Ryan Adcock, are 18. All were suspended from school pending court proceedings and conferences with parents.

The operation began in September when several deputies posing as students enrolled at the school, said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department spokesman George Ducoulombier They attended classes, did their homework and bought drugs, mostly marijuana, as well as LSD and methamphetamine.

Two of the suspects allegedly had drugs in their possession when they were pulled out of class about 9 a.m. and searched before being arrested. Police Capt. Jeff Cameron said his office had not yet determined where any of the suspects were buying the drugs they allegedly sold to the undercover officers.

Principal Paulson said indications that formerly good students were using drugs “bothered us terribly because we’d watch their performances as a freshman, and then as a sophomore it would drop off a little bit.”

In the wake of Thursday’s arrests, Paulson said, teachers and counselors will receive training in how to recognize signs of drug use.

As their classmates were taken to the Lennox sheriff’s station for booking, students huddled in groups just off campus to swap stories about the sting and to speculate about which students were really undercover officers.

“Oh, that short little creepy guy,” one student, who asked not to be identified, said with a nod. “Man, everybody thought he was a coke head.”

Several students said they were shocked by the arrests, while others said they were angry with administrators for placing “spies” in their classrooms.

“This is harassment,” said freshman Justin Cummings. “Not that many people here do drugs. It shouldn’t go this far.”

Joe Bankovich, 14, said that although plenty of students at Redondo Union use marijuana, the drug of choice is alcohol--and neither seems to be a serious problem.