24 GANG SUSPECTS HELD IN RAIDS ON DRUG RING

Crime: The Sweep Of An Alleged Cocaine Network In Compton, Lynwood Follows
A Two-Year Probe. One Man Holds Officers At Bay For Five Hours Before He's
Caught.

Two dozen suspected gang members were arrested early Thursday as
authorities conducted raids in Lynwood and Compton in an attempt to
break up a sophisticated cocaine distribution network.

Most of the suspects were arrested quickly and without incident,
authorities said.

But one suspect, 24-year-old Roberto Suarez, held off sheriff's
deputies for more than five hours as he refused to come out of a home
in Lynwood. Deputies tried to get him out using persuasion and tear
gas, which wafted across the quiet neighborhood and at one point
forced a crowd of curious neighbors to run for cover. Suarez was
arrested after television news crews wandered into a neighboring yard.
Deputies then found Suarez hiding in a garage.

Law enforcement officers said they arrested the gang's alleged leader,
Frederick Staves, 38, on Wednesday and set out early Thursday to catch
additional suspects who reportedly worked under him as part of the
Santana Block Crips.

By late Thursday, 24 people, including Suarez, were in custody. Still
sought were suspects Patricia Allen, Ganeta Carter, Donnie Howard,
Laurence Reed and Marcos Yanes.

Most of those caught were charged with conspiracy to distribute
narcotics. Officers seized at least 10 firearms, including an AK-47
assault rifle, an undisclosed amount of cash and drugs, and several
lowrider cars with murals of gang life painted on the sides. Among
them was a show car decked in chrome that investigators estimated
could be worth as much as $250,000.

Staves was a hobbyist whose "love was those lowrider cars," said
Richard Garcia, a special agent in charge of the FBI in Los Angeles.

He said investigators believe Staves had been involved in gangs since
the 1970s and had built the Santana Block Crips into a businesslike
cocaine distribution ring, receiving cartel drugs from Mexico and
sending them out around the country.

Unlike many such gangs, Garcia said, the group even had its own
money-laundering unit, allegedly run by Staves' wife, Guadalupe Yanes
Staves, who also was arrested. She is alleged to have run a business
for this purpose called OG's Paging Network.

Other lieutenants and buyers were responsible for moving quantities of
cocaine to dealers in Texas, Ohio and elsewhere, Garcia said.

The two-year investigation preceding the raid was conducted by a task
force of agencies, including the FBI; federal Drug Enforcement
Administration; U.S. Marshals Service; Internal Revenue Service;
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; Immigration and
Naturalization Service; and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

It started, an FBI spokesman said, after authorities in Compton
struggling to deal with increasingly violent neighborhood gangs sought
help from federal agencies.

Suarez, the final suspect arrested, was taken into custody near Olanda
Street and Stoneacre Avenue in Lynwood after a long siege reminiscent
of the last week's deadly one in Stevenson Ranch. This one, however,
ended much more quietly.

Deputies who first tried to serve a warrant on Suarez backed off after
he sent his girlfriend and two small children out of the house, and
they heard what they thought was the sound of a rifle being prepared
for firing.

After tear gas and a compression grenade failed to get Suarez out of
the house, officers went inside. They emerged shortly after to declare
it empty and began to leave the scene.

A sheriff's spokesman said later that dogs picked up Suarez's scent
and led deputies to him.

But Warren Wilson, a reporter for television station KTLA, said he and
another reporter had tried to follow a woman identified as Suarez's
girlfriend into the backyard of a neighbor's house after deputies
began packing to leave.

Deputies told the news crews to leave, Wilson said, and there was some
"yelling and screaming" between reporters and deputies in the
backyard. Within a few moments, though, deputies found Suarez hiding
in the attic of the garage, Wilson said.