Police Raids

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.

Ending a years-long manhunt, troops in Colombia have found the corpse of Pedro "the Knife" Guerrero, one of the country's top right-wing paramilitary leaders and drug traffickers, President Juan Manuel Santos said Wednesday. Guerrero, whose nickname refers to the weapon he favored while terrifying peasants he suspected of aiding leftist rebels, was believed to have been mortally wounded in a gun battle Christmas morning when 120 helicopter-borne commandos of the special Junglas anti-narcotics police force raided his camp near the remote town of Mapiripan in Meta state.

A detective who has been testifying in the Dalton Avenue police vandalism case for three days has refused to answer any more questions because he is now under investigation for possible perjury. By exercising his 5th Amendment right not to incriminate himself, Detective Robert Clark opens himself up to possible discipline and firing by Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, according to the city attorney's office.

Ova di wall, Ova di wall Put yuh AK ova di wall… Blood a go run Like Dunns River Fall. Blood flowing like waterfalls. Brains floating like feathers out of a torn pillow. Women submitting to the whims of neighborhood "dons." The images are typical of dancehall, a popular Jamaican music style that has sparked a furious debate over whether it merely reflects an increasingly violent society or somehow contributes to the mayhem. Some of dancehall's most popular performers, including Elephant Man, who wrote "Ova di Wall," use hyperviolent lyrics that chronicle the exploits of "badmanism," the cult of gun-toting gangs.

Larry Madrid, 63, says he wakes up every morning at 4:30 a.m. sharp, gets out of bed and checks his front door. Four months have passed since police busted down the door to the small Atwater Village home his family has owned for generations, handcuffing him and his son as part of an early-morning gang sweep. But the feelings of violation are still fresh. "You can't imagine how belittling it was," said Madrid, a soft-spoken Vietnam-era veteran with a graying mustache and a fatherly paunch.

Re "Pot Plantation Poses Big Risk for Authorities," Aug. 31: In forests all over the state, there are sites identified almost reverentially as bootleggers' encampments from the Prohibition era. Today we have whole cities going unprotected while the entire police force is out in the woods pulling up pot plants. All of the environmental damage, booby traps, guns and threats to rangers and innocent hikers are effects of the drug war, not justification for it. When do we end our drug war?

An 81-year-old woman was among 27 alleged crack cocaine dealers arrested in police raids in Mobile County. Bayou La Batre Police Chief John Joyner said police received information from an informant that Margie Steiner was dealing drugs. She was placed under surveillance and was videotaped selling crack cocaine, officers said.

Los Angeles cop Juan Aguilar has been battling the Avenues hoodlums long enough to have seen the gang at its most vicious. During his five years working an anti-gang detail on streets the Avenues claim as their own in the city's northeastern reaches, gang members are accused of gunning down a man in broad daylight as he held his 2-year-old granddaughter's hand, opening fire on LAPD officers with an assault rifle and killing a Los Angeles County...

About 200 police raided Copenhagen's hippie enclave and detained 53 people in a crackdown on the sale of hashish. The drug is illegal in Denmark, but authorities have tolerated its sale in Christiania, a counterculture area with no government, cars or police.

In a series of gang raids aimed at ending violence sparked by the murder of rap star Tupac Shakur, more than 300 law enforcement officers swept Compton and nearby areas Wednesday, arresting 23 people, including a reputed Lakewood gang member wanted for questioning in connection with Shakur's death. The sweep, which was set in motion before dawn and involved 11 law enforcement agencies, appeared to stem from street rumors in Compton that Shakur was killed in a gang dispute.

Police on horseback and in sport utility vehicles swept across Venice Beach in the darkness Friday morning, arresting nearly 50 people, many homeless, on warrants and felony violations, authorities said. The sweep was part of an effort to address a recent spike in crime and a jump in the number of transients sleeping on the beach after it closes at midnight, LAPD officials said. Friday's action marked the first time the beach curfew task force had combined a sweep with outreach efforts, officials said.

Larry Madrid, 63, says he wakes up every morning at 4:30 a.m. sharp, gets out of bed and checks his front door. Four months have passed since police busted down the door to the small Atwater Village home his family has owned for generations, handcuffing him and his son as part of an early-morning gang sweep. But the feelings of violation are still fresh. "You can't imagine how belittling it was," said Madrid, a soft-spoken Vietnam-era veteran with a graying mustache and a fatherly paunch.

In highly orchestrated raids around the world this week, Interpol officers in Europe, drug agents in the United States and task forces from Sweden to Singapore confiscated counterfeit prescription drugs in an attempt to stem a rapidly growing criminal business that preys on financially pressed consumers looking for bargains. The operation, code-named Pangea, is an effort to fight back against fraudulent prescription drug businesses, which have become a $28-million industry in the United States alone.

For about the last eight months, several suspects allegedly ran a sophisticated marijuana operation in a warehouse just 25 feet from the Los Angeles Police Department's Topanga Station in Canoga Park, police said Wednesday. Three men were taken into custody after officers served a search warrant on the warehouse in the 8400 block of Canoga Avenue. "It was very sophisticated," said LAPD Officer Karen Raynor. She said the growers used insulation material to seal cracks in the building.

Investigators in New York raided circulation offices at some of the nation's largest newspapers as part of a union corruption probe, a law enforcement official said. Police officers working with the Manhattan district attorney's office searched circulation offices of the New York Times in Queens, the New York Post and the Daily News in Manhattan, and El Diario in Brooklyn, the official said. Investigators were seeking paperwork related to the Newspaper and Mail Deliverers Union.

Federal authorities Wednesday arrested several members of a radical Sunni Islamic group in the U.S., killing one of its leaders in a shootout at a Dearborn, Mich., warehouse, the U.S. attorney's office said. Agents were trying to arrest Luqman Ameen Abdullah, 53, on charges that included conspiracy to sell stolen goods and illegal possession and sale of firearms. Authorities also conducted raids elsewhere to try to round up 10 followers named in a federal complaint. No one was charged with terrorism.

Cisco Systems Inc., the world's largest manufacturer of computer network equipment, said it was cooperating with Brazilian authorities who raided offices across the country to break up an alleged tax evasion scheme. Police refused to name which company may have benefited from the plot, but a police statement described the firm as an "American multinational, leader in the sector of high-technology services and equipment for corporate networks, Internet and telecommunications."

Turkey's security forces raided two Istanbul neighborhoods in a bid to end a hunger strike that has cost more than 40 lives and thrown a spotlight on the country's poor human rights record. In one raid, police used tear gas and clashed with about 50 people who threw stones and Molotov cocktails. A second operation led to the arrest of seven hunger strikers and many of their supporters, the state-run Anatolian news agency reported. The strikers are protesting prison conditions.

Reporting from Mexico City and Tegucigalpa, Honduras -- The de facto Honduran government has silenced two dissident broadcasters, part of a crackdown on civil liberties aimed at undermining support for ousted President Manuel Zelaya. Soldiers and police before dawn today raided Radio Globo, a national broadcaster sympathetic to Zelaya. Late Sunday, Channel 36 television was yanked from the air. The two stations frequently carry interviews with Zelaya and his supporters -- voices given short shrift in most other Honduran media.