The brick house with the enormous black satellite dish in the driveway sits empty now, the tenants evicted. The building is fenced, its windows are boarded and a For Sale sign hangs outside.
Last year, the Los Angeles city attorney's office sued to close the house at 3304 Drew St. in Glassell Park as a public nuisance. Authorities are now seeking to demolish it.
For more than a decade, the Satellite House, as it's known in the neighborhood, was the center of the drug trade on two-block Drew Street, where dealers and gang members have operated with near-impunity for years, police said.
During at least two raids at the house since 2002, according to court documents, officers found guns and drugs as well as surveillance cameras, laser trip wires and a shrine to Jesus Malverde, the Mexican folk hero who has become drug smugglers' unofficial patron saint.
Occupying the house until recently was Maria "Chata" Leon and her family.
An illegal immigrant and mother of 13, Leon has a lengthy arrest record and three convictions for drug-related crimes -- for which she's served no prison time, according to court documents. She declined to be interviewed for this story.
Police said Leon, 44, and her extended family were deeply involved in the drug trade that has made Drew Street among L.A.'s most notorious.
The neighborhood came to the attention of most people only after undercover police officers got into a shootout there last month with gang members who had allegedly killed a man in another Northeast Los Angeles neighborhood. But police had long had Drew Street on their radar.
It is "hands down the worst area of Northeast Division," said LAPD Officer Steve Aguilar, who has patrolled the street for five years. "I've worked two other divisions and even in South-Central. This is worse."
The Leons -- and members of several other immigrant families on Drew Street whom authorities have charged with criminal acts -- hail from the town of Tlalchapa in the state of Guerrero, which has a reputation as one of Mexico's most violent regions. Police estimate that dozens of members of these extended families belong to the Avenues gang.
"It's been a safety net for them to rely on each other -- brothers, cousins and all," said LAPD Lt. Robert Lopez. "The likelihood of someone within your family ratting you out is really low."
