Fullerton Police Give Gangs a Wake-Up Call

Detectives said they had a message for this city’s gangs, and they delivered it just after dawn Thursday by storming and searching 30 homes in the largest police operation in Fullerton history.

Fifteen suspects were arrested on suspicion of such crimes as armed robbery and drug possession as 137 officers converged on the homes of suspected gang members. Police seized nine firearms, two explosive devices, several knives and a sword, more than a pound of marijuana and assorted items bearing gang graffiti.

The raids culminated a yearlong investigation and police were hopeful that the firearms taken into evidence could be linked to several violent felonies, including a September slaying. But, police officials said, there was another goal to the massive show of force.

“The message was ‘You cannot commit violent crimes here and get away with it,”’ said Fullerton Police Det. Tom Basham, the lead investigator for the sweep. “This tells them, ‘If you do something wrong, we will track you down. There are consequences.’ ”

That ultimatum was not a welcome one at many of the homes. At several houses, officers were greeted by drowsy, irate families and choruses of profanity as they cuffed suspects and rummaged through closets and dressers.

“This is my house!” screeched one man as gloved officers bundled drug paraphernalia into paper evidence sacks. “Why are you here? You got no right!”

Not all the receptions were angry. On one block, next to a weather-beaten fence that tumbled during one raid, a group of youngsters giggled and waved when a police SWAT member greeted them. A few blocks away, a middle-aged neighbor smiled and silently clapped as police drove off with another suspected gang member in custody.

The sweep was likely the largest single-day police operation in the city’s history, Fullerton Police Lt. Jeff Roop said. “It’s definitely the largest I’ve ever seen,” the 24-year veteran said.

Officers and agents from 12 agencies gathered for a predawn rendezvous at the Fullerton Senior Center before spreading out across the city in long caravans of patrol cars. Early morning pedestrians stopped and stared at the army-like procession, which included six heavily armed SWAT members standing on the running boards of a sport utility vehicle.

The raids began just before 7 a.m. as officers with search warrants and drawn weapons surrounded wood-frame homes along Valencia Drive, Truslow Avenue, Amerige Avenue and other downtown city streets.

The homes varied from ramshackle cottages with missing doors and chicken coops to stucco houses along suburban cul-de-sacs. One home in Anaheim was also raided and was the site of four of the 15 arrests.

In all, five juveniles and 10 adults were arrested. Two were held on suspicion of armed robbery, nine on drug offenses and three for possession of stolen property. All arrests took place without incident or injury, police said.

One suspect was held for possession of explosive devices after investigators seized two items they described as industrial-use blasting charges. The device was turned over to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department bomb squad.

“We’re told that if they were strapped on to a tree three inches in diameter they would bust it in two,” Fullerton Police Sgt. Greg Mayes said.

The firearms seized will be sent to the sheriff’s crime lab for analysis, Mayes said. Police hope to forge links between the confiscated weapons and a rash of violent felonies associated with the city’s gangs.

Several of the guns were the same caliber as the one that killed Ramon Toro, 28, who died while attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, police said. Toro was struck in throat by stray gunfire as gang members argued outside the group’s storefront meeting place.

Police also hope one of the handguns can be connected to bullets found at the scene of a January 1995 robbery where two Fullerton officers came under fire. The officers were working undercover as pizza delivery men after managers at a local Domino’s franchise reported that drivers were being targeted.

Those incidents and others have showed that local gang members have ratcheted up the intensity of their crimes in the past year, police said.

“The activity has increased and the ruthlessness of the crimes has increased,” Basham said. “The gang situation in Fullerton has been under control. We don’t want to get in a situation, like some other cities in the county, where we lose that control.”

Police also pointed to the seizure of a police scanner at one of the homes as an indication that Fullerton’s gangs may be becoming more sophisticated. At the same home, police found a faux business card that listed one of the suspects as a “Gang Barrio Consultant.”

Police said the homes targeted Thursday are the residences of suspected members and associates of the Fullerton Tokers, the city’s largest and most active gang. The gang may have as many as 250 members, although police estimate only a few dozen are “regular, active members,” Roop said.

Several suspects and their families complained that police were harassing them unfairly. One argued that he was out of the gang but that police would not let him get on with his life. At another home, a woman wailed in anger and frustration as her son was hauled away for having a marijuana pipe in his pocket.

At nearly every home, police confiscated or photographed gang-related memorabilia, such as artwork, photos of youths flashing gang hand signals and clothing bearing gang insignia. The items included a Nintendo video game coated in graffiti and a giant get-well card that was emblazoned with gang logos and signed by the friends of a peer who had been shot.

Roop said the items will be used as evidence to show that suspects are gang-affiliated, a distinction that may lead to longer sentences if they are convicted of criminal charges.

“That’s part of the message too,” Roop said. “We are going to prosecute to the fullest. We’re just not going to tolerate this in Fullerton.”