Five Arrested on Suspicion of Making Drugs Near School

Police have arrested five men at a home near an elementary school and day-care center after discovering a large clandestine drug lab and two loaded assault weapons.

The men--one of whom had an outstanding manslaughter warrant--were taken into custody Tuesday after someone called police about 1:30 p.m. reporting shots fired, authorities said. Sgt. Scott Watson said police learned the men had been shooting at bottles in the backyard.

When police arrived at the home in the 10711 block of Frances Avenue in search of shooting victims, they instead found suspicious chemicals and called the police narcotics unit. Inside, investigators executing a search warrant found a drug lab filled with chemicals used to make methamphetamine, or speed, and $25,000 worth of finished methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and marijuana, Watson said.

Children were present at nearby Mitchell Elementary School and at a Christian day-care center during the raid, prompting police to seek an enhancement charge against the men for manufacturing drugs within 1,000 feet of a school, said Garden Grove Lt. John Woods.

“It was during school hours,” Woods said. “Both the schools were occupied. The Christian day care is only 400 feet away.”

Taken into custody were George Espinoza, 40, and Raul Fernandez, 42, who live at the home; Frank Villareal, 22, and Steve Rico, 19, both of Santa Ana; and 18-year-old Juan Villicana of Riverside.

They were booked into the Orange County Jail on suspicion of manufacturing methamphetamine, possessing firearms, possessing methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine and marijuana for sale; and manufacturing drugs near a school.

Rico and Villicana presented officers with driver’s licenses under fictitious names, but when police ran the men’s fingerprints through the automated state system, they found both were wanted under their real names--Rico for two narcotics warrants and a vehicular manslaughter warrant and Villicana for absconding while on probation.