The king of L.A. cocaine

Press, 15 May 1987, Page 16

The king of L.A. cocaine

From

FRANK TAYLOR

th. *naihr Tetemnh* or me y ®*®l» pn .

He is known to the Los Angeles police as Way Out He wears a gold earring in his left ear-lobe, buys his suits in Beverly Hills on Rodeo Drive — probably the world’s most expensive shopping street — and owns four cars: a Rolls Royce, a a BMW and a Chevrolet Corvette. He is black.

Way Out is no movie star, no chart-busting rock-singer, not even a revival-school TV evangelist He is a dealer in cocaine — more specifically, the hlghlypotent form of drug known as crack.

His milieu is the mean streets of South Central Los Angeles. His friends make up one of the 180 gangs which have carved up the; area —- and often each other — with such ferocity and purpose' that some police officers readily admit “We’ve lost the war.’’

Way Out is only 21, but some; of his competitors are in their teens. What more effective way' for the big drug dealers, to' penetrate , the rim-down schools of the area than to employ' youngsters who ate the same age ‘ as their targets? * The dealers sign “delivery; boys” at schools and provide them with electronic bleepers.; When the dealer has a new consignment of crack — often in* small bags costing only 10 cents; — he brashly drives up to the school and bleeps his contact? Some of the braver school heads have barred bleepers on the* grounds that they have become “disruptive,” but others are afraid to make any move against; the drug networks. In the narcotics section of the police headquarters in downtown Los Angeles, the files for South Central get thicker every week. Police Commissioner Daryl Gates estimates that some 15,000 youngsters belong to the gangs, some of whose members disdain old street fighters’ weapons like the switchblade, favouring instead Uzi submachine guns or AK-47 assault rifles.

As he stands beside a huge vault containing seized cocaine, Mr Gates comments sadly: “Every year the problem seems to increase. There is still no clear understanding of how serious it is.” He notes that his officers have confiscated more than about JNZI32O million worth of cocaine so far this year, a 300 per cent increase, over the same period last year. 'x

Despite increased police Vigilance, Los Angeles has become. America’s principal cocaine consumer. It is now also the main distribution point for the. rest of the country.

The Mayor of Los Angeles, Mr TOm Bradley,-* last?', week established a 14-member commission to study the crack problem. His move was carried out with some fanfare but was nonetheless greeted with a ceriain amount of scepticism by those who recalled that he took similar action in 1984 with the alm of wiping out street gangs. - . —