15 Students of Vista Del Lago High School Arrested on drug-dealing charges: The principal denies knowing of plain clothes Deputies on her campus. Administration stated drugs are no more a problem (at Vista Del Lago) than at other district schools.

Parents of many fearful students lined up this week to dis-enroll their students from Vista Del Lago High School in Moreno Valley after undercover officers posing as students spent four months there and at another Inland high school gathering evidence that led to Thursday’s (12/09/2011) arrest of 24 teenagers on drug-dealing charges.

Armed with arrest warrants, officers descended on Vista del Lago High School in Moreno Valley and Elsinore High School in Wildomar on Thursday, plucking students from class to arrest them, officials said.

At Vista del Lago, a Riverside County sheriff’s deputy began attending on Aug. 10, the first day of school, court records say. He pretended he was a student while trying to ferret out drug dealing on campus, court records say.

Chief Deputy Boris Robinson confirmed that undercover officers were used in the investigations at both schools but declined to say how many were at each campus. Authorities targeted the schools because the local sheriff’s station captains had received complaints about drugs there, Robinson said.

Other than a similar undercover sting last year at Palm Desert High School, Robinson said he wasn’t aware of other recent undercover drug investigations at Riverside County high schools.

In 2006, the Riverside Police Department conducted a sting in which a youthful-looking officer trained to dress and talk like a teenager enrolled at Ramona High School for a few months in search of students selling drugs. That investigation resulted in the arrest of 13 students, most of whom were caught with small amounts of marijuana. The Los Angeles Police Department pioneered undercover drug busts in high schools decades ago. But the department discontinued its program in 2005 after Los Angeles Unified School District officials noticed an increasing number of students arrested were in special education and that police typically found very small amounts of marijuana. District officials feared the program was failing to catch the serious drug dealers.

Judy White, superintendent of the Moreno Valley Unified School District, said sheriff’s officials approached her about doing an undercover operation, but she declined to say whether she knew which school was targeted. She said Vista del Lago’s principal was not aware of the investigation and that drugs are no more a problem there than at other district schools.

While she initially had concerns about an undercover drug investigation in the schools, such as the risk of entrapment, White said sheriff’s officials reassured her that the probe would be carefully planned and executed and would make the schools safer. The purpose, she said, “is to send a strong message to the youth that they need to think about decisions they are making.” She said that, on Thursday, the officers were on campus for fewer than 15 minutes and the arrests were made without incident.

Lake Elsinore Unified School District Superintendent Frank Passarella, through a spokesman, said he and one other administrator were aware of the investigation, but he declined to discuss potential safety or fairness issues with undercover drug busts in schools. Spokesman Mark Dennis said the superintendent did not want to second-guess the police. Both districts said the busts underscore their “zero-tolerance” policies toward drugs on campus.

“It is important that we show we’re proactive,” Dennis said. The teens charged in the sting range from 15 to 19 years old, Riverside County district attorney’s office spokesman John Hall said. The only adult arrested, former Vista del Lago student Cory Granthum Brown, is charged with two counts of selling marijuana, Hall said.

According to an investigator’s statement in support of an arrest warrant, an undercover deputy began talking with Brown about marijuana in mid-October and bought from Brown on campus twice that month, court records say. The second buy was a $20 transaction, the investigator wrote.

Robinson said Brown was not at the school Thursday but turned himself in later in the day. He was being held at the Southwest Detention Center in French Valley and is scheduled to appear in court Monday, jail records show. Family members did not respond Friday to requests for comment.

Among the 23 minors arrested, 20 were charged with marijuana sales, Hall said. A 17-year-old girl at Elsinore High School was charged with selling cocaine. Three boys at Vista del Lago were charged with selling cocaine, ecstasy or both, Hall said. Sheriff’s officials said deputies seized marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, ecstasy and prescription drugs during the investigation. Robinson would not disclose the amounts of drugs seized because he said the investigation is continuing.

Not mentioned was the reports that a fully functioning “drug trafficking ring” suspected of operating from inside the Moreno Valley campus.