PCP

Federal prosecutors Wednesday announced two grand jury indictments against 13 members of the Grape Street Crips, a street gang suspected of manufacturing and distributing large quantities of the drug PCP throughout Southern California.

Federal authorities announced Monday they had arrested two men they said were among the largest producers of PCP in Southern California history. The two were in possession of 20 gallons of the hallucinogen, amounting to at least 768,000 doses, Drug Enforcement Administration spokeswoman Sarah Pullen said. Taylor Wright, 38, and Clifford Oliver, 36, were being held at Orange County Jail on suspicion of conspiring to manufacture PCP with the intent of selling it, authorities said.

City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo is asking a judge for authority to close a house in Watts allegedly used by members of the Grape Street Crips to cook PCP. The house in the 10300 block of Lou Dillon Avenue "has been used as a flophouse or safe house in addition to a place where PCP was cooked up," said Frank Mateljan, a spokesman for Delgadillo's office. Police have been called several times to the property in the last two years. Last summer, they searched the house and another property and found 15 gallons of hazardous waste, a byproduct of cooking PCP. The house is owned by Lillian Foster, mother of Alphonso Foster, who is in jail facing federal drug charges and whom police allege is an influential member of the Grape Street Crips, city attorney officials said.

A foul odor from a garage in a Ladera Ranch apartment complex led authorities to what they described as the largest seizure of PCP ever made in Orange County. Sheriff's deputies seized 8 gallons of the hallucinogen, valued at $12.2 million, Saturday from a garage allegedly used by Taylor Winston Wright, 37, who escaped from deputies after handing them his driver's license, sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said Monday.

Two men under investigation in a high-profile Los Angeles County murder were convicted Thursday in Riverside of federal drug charges related to a massive Southern California PCP distribution ring. George Williams and Rodrick Cardale "Lil Rod" Reed, both of Compton, were convicted of manufacturing and distributing PCP and conspiracy to distribute the drug. They face maximum sentences of life in prison. Drug agents who raided their operation in 2003 recovered 175 kilograms of the drug.

The Orange County district attorney's office announced Tuesday a new name on the county's 10 most wanted list. Taylor Wilson Wright, 37, was last seen June 4 in Ladera Ranch when Orange County sheriff's deputies discovered a PCP lab, chemicals, 8 gallons of PCP, a stolen car and a loaded gun at his home, said Susan Kang Schroeder, a district attorney's spokeswoman. Wright has been charged with manufacturing a controlled substance and possession for sale of narcotics, Schroeder said.

The largest PCP crackdown in recent U.S. history was announced Tuesday with the arrests of 24 people in Los Angeles and Houston on federal charges of conspiracy to manufacture and sell the potent hallucinogen known as angel dust. In all, authorities said, federal and local drug agents seized enough chemicals and laboratory materials to produce, on an ongoing basis, at least 300 gallons of PCP.

More than 250 officers swept through Compton and nearby areas in a series of raids, arresting 15 alleged gang members accused of operating the most lucrative PCP ring in Southern California, authorities announced Thursday. Authorities served search warrants on 22 sites in 10 cities, rousting the alleged leader of the drug ring, Roderick Cardale Reed, from his bed at a residence in Rialto.

Six junior high school students were taken to local hospitals Tuesday after overdosing on PCP, police said. Officers arrived at Washington Junior High School about 2:30 p.m. after four girls and two boys ingested PCP that they believed was cocaine or methamphetamine, Police Lt. Archie Scott said. Paramedics rushed four teenagers to Kern Medical Center. One boy was in serious condition at the hospital's intensive care unit and another boy was in guarded but stable condition.

Three young children and a sheriff's deputy trying to serve a search warrant were injured Monday in Pasadena after suspected drug dealers tried to destroy two containers of the hallucinogen PCP, authorities said. The suspects--three men and a woman--were also overcome by fumes, said Sheriff's Lt. Ron Williams. All the suspects were taken to a hospital for treatment, he said. The woman is the children's grandmother, he said.