L.A. Crack Chronology
1974
UCLA drug researchers first learn from interviews with drug traffickers of a recipe to produce crack cocaine by mixing baking soda with cocaine powder. The recipe was circulating in the San Francisco Bay area as eary as 1970.
1976
Los Angeles' most prominent black drug dealer, Thomas (Tootie) Reese is introduced to crack cocaine by friends in the San Francisco area. The crack recipe is published for the first time in the book, "Pleasures of Cocaine."
1978
Residents of the Nickerson Gardens public housing project in South Central Los Angeles are seen by researchers smoking what is now called crack cocaine.
1979
About 26 pounds of cocaine powder are seized from a Granada Hills warehouse, which agents say is being stocked by Lear jets loaded with 200-kilos flying in from Southern Florida. Columbian cartel leader Carlos Ledher Rivas identified as the major supplier.
1979
Yale University Prof. Robert Byck warns congressional committee about the potential for a cocaine smoking epidemic in the United States.
1980
Comedian Richard Pryor focuses public attention on the dangers of smoking cocaine processed with ether when he sets himself afire. This prompts a search among users for a less dangerous form of smokable cocaine. Ether, which was commonly used at the time to convert powder cocaine into smokeable form, reportedly blamed for the explosion.
1981
More than 113 pounds of cocaine is seized in Van Nuys, marking an explosive growth in the cocaine trade as well as the discovery of a network of Columbians here to market it. The ring reportedly handled 3,600 pounds of cocaine and $73 million in seven months. Honduran drug trafficker Ramon Matta Ballesteros is identified as the ring's supplier.
DEA intelligence reports document the presence of crack cocaine in Los Angeles, San Diego and Houston.
1982
Auto maker John Z. DeLorean indicted in Los Angeles for conspiracy to import 220 pounds of cocaine.
LAPD begins investigation of the Bryant Family, a Pacioma organization credited with establishing the first "rock houses" selling crack and other drugs to the black community.
DEA agents stop 509 pounds of cocaine from entering the country, up 39% from the year before. The South Florida Task Force is set up to choke off Florida as a point of entry for the drug. Smugglers develop a new path through Mexico into Los Angeles, which later becomes the coke capital of the nation.
1983
Cocaine dealer Oscar Danilo Blandon severes ties with Contra-backed suppliers of cocaine, starts dealing directly with Columbian sources and keeps the proceeds for himself, according to his sworn testimony. About this time he says he was selling 50 kilos a month of cocaine to a Honduran, who in turn sold it to Ricky Ross. He says he met Ricky for the first time in 1984.
1984
The conviction of Thomas (Tootie) Reese, a major drug dealer in the black community, sets off a battle for control of the crack cocaine distribution system and hundreds of rock houses in Los Angeles.
1985
With the crack epidemic spiraling out of control, Police Chief Daryl Gates uses the controversial "battering ram" as a tool to enter rock houses controlled by the Bryant family in Los Angeles.
1986
Congress singles out crack dealers for harsh new penalties: mandatory 10-year sentences for those convicted of selling 50 grams of crack. Federal law enforcement officials start targeting street dealers in addition to powder suppliers.
1986
Sheriff deputies raid Oscar Blandon's southland drug operation. Unnamed confidential informants identify Blandon as a supporter of the Nicaraguan contras, who are said to raise money for their cause by dealing drugs.
1986-87
"Operation Pices" culminates in 241 arrests and more than 190 felony convictions of Columbian drug dealers. About $23 million in laundered cash and 5 tons of cocaine is seized in Los Angeles. Among those convicted is Jesus Anibal Zapata, a top Columbian money launderer accused of washing $17 million a week in drug profits from Los Angeles to banks in Miami and Panama.
1987
A task force created a year earlier by local police to target Ricky Ross and other prospering crack dealers, is nabbed by cops after a chase and charged with possession of cocaine. He is later released and moves to Cincinnati, where sets up a major crack operation. A even bigger drug dealer, Elrader Browning, Jr.is indicted and later convicted of conspiracy to supply L.A. rock houses and distribute cocaine to Detroit Oakland.
1988
One of the biggest crack dealers in Los Angeles, Brian Bennett, who sold 1,000 kilos a week from Los Angeles to Detroit, is indicted in federal court where prosecutors document his direct ties to both Columbian suppliers and local street gangs. That same year, Stanley Bryant, director of a thriving crack cocaine empire that expanded from Pacoima to 20 U.S. cities, becomes a suspect in the quadruple slayings of two rival drug dealers and two witnesses, ending in a court case and the death penalty seven years later.
1989
Federal officials report that Los Angeles street gangs are exporting crack cocaine to 42 cities across the country. An estimated 10,000 gang members in Los Angles are said to be involved in dealing drugs.
1990
A record seizure of 21 tons of cocaine in a Sylmar warehouses leads to the conviction of six Mexicans, including drug kingpin Rafael Munoz, who were paid $81 million by Columbians during a four-month period to transport 150,000 pounds of cocaine hidden in big-rigs through El Paso into Los Angeles.
1991
Ricky Ross, imprisoned in Cincinnati on cocaine trafficking charges, wins a reduction in his sentence after testifying in the money-skimming corruption trial of several sheriff deputies in Los Angeles. Drug statistics show a drop in crack usage nationwide.
1992
Blandon is indicted in San Diego for distributing cocaine and laundering narcotics proceeds Later, in return for his cooperation, he is released from prison after serving just 28 months and is paid more than $166,000 as an informant by the U.S. government..
1995
The operator of a rap music recording studio in Hollywood, Quintin Stephen, is indicted for distributing large quantities of cocaine powder as well as crack to a half-dozen cities. Stephen, a member of the Eight Trey Gangster Crips, is accused of using the studio as a front for his crack distribution network.
1996
Ricky Ross goes to trial in San Diego, accused of making a down payment to buy 100 kilograms of cocaine from Blandon, who was helping with a federal undercover sting operation. Ross claims he was unfairly entrapped and charges that the CIA, working with Blandon, created the crack epidemic in Los Angeles.
Rise and Spread of Crack
The crack phenomenon erupted almost simultaneously on both U.S. coasts during the early 1980s before sweeping the rest of the nation. By 1986, it was estimated that a million Americans has smoked crack.
* On the East Coast, Jamaican, Haitian and Dominican immigrants were instrumental in spreading crack.
* Law enforcement action to slow the flow of cocaine into South Florida forced cartels to open a second route into the United States through Central America and Mexico.
* On the West Coast, street gangs and drug rings, both large and small, supply crack to a burgeoning market.
* Traffickers are of different nationalities and theater of operation. Cocaine comes from Boliva, Peru and Colombia, where coca plants are grown by farmers and shipped to processing plants of the Cali and Medellin cartels. From there, powder cocaine is transported by ship, plane and truck into Southern California and Miami. Once in the United States, drug dealers turn the powder cocaine into crack.
