SAN DIEGO
Federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents arrested five men Thursday and seized a quantity of rock cocaine--also known as crack--from a “rock house†in East San Diego.
Fifteen DEA agents raided the house in the 4000 block of Winona Avenue at 2:30 p.m. Inside they found Terrance Lamar Miles, 19, of San Diego, and Vincent Arby Gamboa, 18, of Los Angeles. Agents also found assorted ammunition, a police radio scanner, an ounce of the highly concentrated rock cocaine, drug packaging materials and several of the glass water pipes that are used to smoke the drug, DEA spokesman Ron D’Ulisse said.
Three other men--Darrell Mendez Johnson, 20; Carl Carlton Gentle, 19, and Derrick Harrisford Brown, 22, all of Los Angeles, were arrested in a car a few blocks away, D’Ulisse said.
D’Ulisse said that police believe the men switched locations frequently to avoid apprehension. At another apartment in the 4400 block of Delta Street, believed to have been used for drug sales in the past, DEA agents found a shotgun but no drugs, D’Ulisse said.
DEA agents learned about the house after an undercover drug purchase by a DEA agent, D’Ulisse said.
Miles and Johnson were arraigned in San Diego Municipal Court on Friday and pleaded not guilty to transporting and selling cocaine. Gamboa and Brown are being held in County Jail at Chula Vista, and Gentle is being held in County Jail downtown. They will be arraigned on narcotics charges early next week.
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