Police Impersonators ‘Raided’ Drug Houses
By Senta Scarborough, The Arizona Republic
Tucson, Arizona -- It was just like a TV cop show.
They came swooping down in a convoy of five unmarked cars, one with flashing red lights. They kicked in the door of a rundown trailer house and drew weapons while yelling, “Police!”
But they were no more real police than Joe Friday.
Quickly, the voice of real law enforcement agents and the sudden flood of tear gas surprised the police-impersonating home-invasion gang, which was caught in the act near Gilbert on Wednesday night.
The real police even got them on videotape in a carefully planned and heavily equipped sting operation aimed at busting the ring of home-invading robbers, who for four years are believed to have ripped off drug dealers in the Tucson and Phoenix areas.
About 45 officers, led by the Arizona Department of Public Safety, used five armored vehicles, two robots, snipers hidden in foxholes and on a neighbor’s roof and helicopters from several agencies to snare nine suspects, DPS spokesman Officer Frank Valenzuela said.
They were identified as Gabriel Jose Mendoza, 26; Guadalupe Gonzalez, 23; Jose Gabriel Lopez, 25; Somardo Rafael Lugo, 30; Arturo Sosa, 27; Adrian Raul Islas, 23; Jesus Alberto Flores, 23; Benny Jilo Bejarano, 27, and Marin Leon Coiral, 23. All those booked at Madison Street Jail Wednesday are from Phoenix or Tucson. Valenzuela said there may be more arrests.
“It was scary and intense at the same time. They were a swarm of bees that got their target,” said M.D. Piepenbrink, a resident of the area who watched the drama starting about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday in the 14000 block of East Pecos Road, just east of Lindsay Road.
The operation capped a three-month, multiagency undercover operation. Police selected a vacant trailer home in a county island near Gilbert and set up a mock stash house, a place where dealers hold drugs for distribution.
Police placed nearly 1,000 pounds of marijuana inside the trailer house and dug foxholes in the back yard where snipers hid.
Valenzuela said the suspects were armed with semiautomatic rifles and pistols and organized in their operations, including checking out their targets in advance so their arrival as “police” was as precisely executed as real police.
“They use lightning speed, and go in and overpower their opponents with speed and firepower, and take the product and move it somewhere else to resell it. It is all profit for them,” Valenzuela said.
He said he did not have information on how many robberies the phony-police home invaders may have committed. He said incidents of “crooks robbing crooks” go unreported because drug smugglers and dealers would be turning themselves in if they reported the crime.