CHASING THE DRAGON

Glendale Activist Accuses Police Of Cooking Up A Drug Problem In The Community

Sirens went off in Herbert Molano's mind last week the minute he saw
the police chief's presentation to the City Council detailing a
dramatic rise in drug use in Glendale.

For starters, Chief Ron DePompa's graph plotting that increase
seemed to make spurious connections between drug incidents and the
years they occurred to highlight a heroin and medical marijuana
problem rearing its head in the northern reaches of the city, he said.

Some drug incidents were reported as happening in one year, but
others were reported as occurring over two years, and Molano said a
graph depicting that data in the presentation was put together in a
way that inaccurately shows a soaring rise in drug use. Besides,
medical marijuana is legal, he said.

Further, Molano, an activist who owns property in Glendale,
questioned the timing of the presentation, which was part of a
council meeting that supposedly included labor negotiations with the
Glendale Police Officers Association.

Molano said the move smacks of the police falsely generating fear to
boost their position in contract talks, and it derails proper talks
on what policies would address such issues.

"They can do whatever uninformed images they want and the public is
just going to eat it up," said Molano, who lost an election bid for
the City Council in 2007.

But police officials say that's far from the case - their contract
is locked through 2011 - and they insist Glendale is in the midst of
a drug surge, specifically in heroin use among youth. In fact, a
2005 survey showed Glendale had one of the worst drug problems
in Los Angeles County.

"There's somebody out there who doesn't like us, or is trying to
skew the facts," said Glendale Police Sgt. Tom Lorenz.

Data in the graph in question - a bar graph showing both a five-year
average juxtaposed with the number of arrests made in the last week,
last month, last six months and last year - was not meant to be used
for comparison, Lorenz said. He did agree that distinction is not
readily discernable at first glance, but that doesn't make the drug
problem any less severe, he said.

"Unfortunately, we've got young teens who have become addicted to
heroin," Lorenz said.