Federal agents and police in tactical vehicles swarmed drug users and dealers in one of California’s most notorious public parks on Wednesday night as part of an ongoing blitz to rid the area of crime.
Executed by the federal Drug Enforcement Agency in partnership with the Los Angeles police, “Operation Free MacArthur Park” aims to eradicate the open-air drug markets that have befouled downtown LA’s once-proud greenspace.
Roughly 100 agents and police officers stormed the park Wednesday in the second such sweep since the operation began earlier this month, targeting stupefied users openly smoking fentanyl at the park’s the litter-strewn corners.
Anthony Chrysanthis, head of the DEA’s Los Angeles office, told The Post that the nighttime sweep was part of an ongoing effort to maintain pressure on dealers and users.
“We want the criminals to know that it doesn’t matter when you go, we can show up and we can control the park whenever need be,” Chrysanthis said.
“This is the commitment that we’ve promised to the people of LA,” he added.
Chrysanthis said latest push is meant to target users themselves, after successful raids took out narco-gang leadership and major suppliers of fentanyl and methamphetamine.
When Operation Free MacArthur Park began with an initial sweep on June 4, police made 13 arrests and issued six citations in less than an hour.
In a subsequent visit to the park, DEA agents and police made six felony arrests, and issued two misdemeanor charges and nine citations.
Wednesday night’s sweep was the third and latest effort in the ongoing project.
The push is already yielding results, Chrysanthis said. In some cases, undercover agents have been unable to purchase drugs in the park since the sweeps began, he said.
More than a century old and originally conceived as LA’s Champs-Élysées, MacArthur Park fell park fell on hard times in the 1980’s as dealers and gangs moved in, with as many as 30 murders occurring there in 1990.
Today, it’s teeming with homelessness and drug use, with throngs of addicts buying fentanyl and meth there each day.
The Los Angeles Police Department put the park’s dealers on notice in March, as officers arrested several leaders of the city’s notorious 18th Street Gang, who controlled the dealing on one side of the park.
In May, DEA agents led another raid of the park’s deadly drug trade, targeting the leadership of the prison-based Mexican Mafia, which supplied dope to the park’s dealers via Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.
The sweeps begun this month heralded another chapter in the crackdown on the drug trade.
LA County District Attorney Nathan Hochman has vowed to clean up the park by Labor Day, saying he would bring his family there for a holiday picnic.
Chrysanthis said officers will continue with regular sweeps of the park to arrest addicts and dealers who once used and sold drugs there with impunity.
“This is going to be ongoing until we have full control of MacArthur back to the people of Los Angeles,” he said.