Multi-Agency Task Force Curbed Crime, Officials Say

Hailing the increased involvement of federal agencies in combating violent street crime, authorities said Friday that a model multi-agency task force helped dramatically reduce crime in Los Angeles’ most violent police division.

But even as lawmen were tallying arrest figures for reporters, there were signs that narcotics activity was returning as the task force disbanded.

The 90-day operation targeted violent drug-related crime in the worst part of the LAPD’s Rampart Division, a gang-infested area near downtown. It was the first time that the LAPD had joined forces with a special squad of federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents and state officials to focus on hard-core street criminals and ex-convicts.

The operation was also distinctive because it focused on weeding out criminals believed responsible for a large share of a community’s violence, rather than simply emphasizing large numbers of arrests.

“[We] went after the worst of the worst,” said Bernard H. La Forest, special agent in charge of the Los Angeles office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

The 8-square-mile Rampart Division includes the city’s most densely populated neighborhoods, swollen by a huge influx of poor immigrants who are often vulnerable to threats and intimidation by criminals.

The division is typically protected by 300 police officers who must confront more than 3,000 gang members battling over turf and drug sales. As of late June, the division had recorded 24 gang-related killings in 1996, up from 15 in the same period the year before, LAPD data show.

Beginning in April, up to 50 DEA agents, LAPD officers, state parole and probation officers and ATF agents saturated the area, posing as drug dealers and conducting surveillance on the street gangs controlling the narcotics trafficking. The task force concluded its operations this week.

More than 400 suspects, including dozens of known gang members, were arrested on charges ranging from weapons and parole violations to heroin and rock cocaine sales, said Cmdr. Gregory R. Berg, head of the LAPD’s Narcotics Group.

Overall violent crime--assaults, robberies, rapes--was down about 25% in the targeted 200-square-block area surrounding MacArthur Park, compared with an 11% decline in the Rampart Division as a whole in the same 90-day period. The number of homicides, however, remained virtually the same.

“We can’t tell you we’ve solved the narcotics problem in Rampart, but there’s been a significant reduction,” Berg said at a news conference at the task force command post near the Rampart station.

On display nearby were tables filled with confiscated shotguns, semiautomatic weapons, stacked kilos of marijuana and bags of crack cocaine and black tar heroin.

Although they praised an operation that they hoped would set an example for the future, authorities conceded that the task force’s impact could be short-lived.

Indeed, at a drug-infested strip mall on nearby Alvarado Street--in the task force’s area--dope dealers openly peddled their goods to passersby even as the news conference got underway.

“It never ends,” said one of the mall’s armed security guards, keeping watch on the drug dealers who hovered in front of a restaurant a few feet away.

Like other workers and residents in the area, the security guard praised the recent police presence, saying that it made a difference, albeit not for long. Shortly after officers arrest suspects, he and others say, new dealers and gang members step into the void.

“Narcotics activity is still very heavy-duty despite the fact we have these task forces going on,” said longtime community activist Nola Mott. “Clearly something has to be done more than what we are doing.”

Berg acknowledged that the area could revert to its prior condition now that the 25 federal agents and parole officers are moving on to other cities.

“When they leave, I’m concerned that we not go backward,” said Berg, adding that the LAPD will try to use newly hired officers to keep up the pressure. “[But] when you have a Police Department about half the size it should be, this is the best you can do.”

Undercover officers in the task force were threatened, chased and, in at least one case, shot at by gang members. “This is probably one of the most violent deployments that the DEA has had since the program began” a year ago in other California cities, said Robert E. Bender, special agent in charge of the Los Angeles division.