Santa Cruz police arrested three suspected drug dealers in the Pogonip Thursday after a sting operation led officers to search the men for drugs. The men, 23-year-old Alfonso Marquez, 23-year-old Rey Antonio and 31-year-old John Pitts, were charged with heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana related crimes – Marquez and Antonio with possession and distribution charges and Pitts with prior drug offenses for which an arrest warrant had been issued.
“Our parks and street crimes unit has seen increased drug activity in the area and this operation was part of our response,” says Santa Cruz Police Spokesman Zach Friend. “When we do continued operations in an area you can make a dent in the trade but the people that avoid arrest often set up elsewhere.”
Police and drug addicts know the area of Pogonip just north of town near where the men were arrested as “Heroin Hill.” A trash-strewn wasteland of used needles, smoking devices and makeshift campsites where addicts are known to stay, sometimes for weeks at a time, the park is arguably the center of Santa Cruz’s bustling hard drug trade. The dealers at Pogonip are almost exclusively Sureño gang members who are known to carry weapons along with methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and marijuana. The three men arrested, each with extensive criminal histories, however, are not listed as known gang members, Friend says. The black tar heroin that’s sold at the park has a reputation for being the cheapest in the region and goes for around $20 per gram, often containing a hodgepodge of chemical additives that make it more affordable than higher grade drugs found elsewhere.
Last summer, parts of the park were closed by the Santa Cruz Fire Department for fear that heroin addicts that use fire to dissolve the drug into a usable state would start wildfires. Since then, there has been increased pressure on police to crack down on drug trafficking as a spike in overall crime in Santa Cruz is often attributed to gangs like the Sureños.
