Authorities dubbed it the “Imperial Avenue Crack Market.”
Law enforcement last month shut down what they described as an open-air drug market at Imperial and 29th Street, charging 30 alleged gang members and associates with conspiracy to distribute cocaine and cocaine base, meaning crack cocaine. The 28 suspects in custody, and two fugitives who are being sought, face a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison.
All defendants have since been arraigned and pleaded not guilty, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Investigators believe that customers purchased about 20 pounds of cocaine on the Grant Hill block weekly. That amount carries an estimated street value of $550,000.
But the market’s influence stretched beyond the community, prosecutors said, feeding a network of low-level dealers on both sides of Interstate 5, reaching nearby Logan Heights and Sherman Heights and across to parts of downtown, including East Village.
It also, at times, turned violent, authorities allege. On Jan. 9, someone drove up in a car on Imperial, exited the vehicle and opened fire, striking two men, who each suffered leg wounds.
The coordinated operation, on July 15, included San Diego, Chula Vista and National City police and San Diego County sheriff’s deputies, in partnership with the FBI Violent Crimes Task Force – Gang Group.
They executed 21 search warrants on homes and vehicles to make the arrests. Authorities confiscated 11 pounds of cocaine and more than $14,000 in U.S. currency along with two handguns and a money-counting device while serving the warrants.
Among the defendants, who range in age from 19 to 76, are three members of one family, including a father and son and the teen’s uncle. Another, Rynell Baker, one of the alleged ring leaders, was convicted of first-degree murder in 1994 and paroled in 2021, prosecutors said.
According to court documents, the alleged conspirators’ roles ranged from low-level street dealers who sold crack cocaine, suppliers who provided powder cocaine to be converted into crack cocaine and purchasers who bought crack cocaine for redistribution.
The investigation began in 2024, focusing on alleged West Coast Crips gang members suspected of drug trafficking and acts of violence near the 2900 block of Imperial. The task force relied on a surveillance camera trained on Imperial at 29th to capture daily activity, along with wiretaps.
“Gang activity has no place in our city,” San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said in a statement. “Disrupting large-scale operations like this is what will keep San Diego one of the safest big cities in the nation.”
Two people who for years have documented drug use and violence in their community, Jason Burke and Cindy Cook, want to see more operations like the one on Imperial Avenue.
They contribute to the “East Village Doers” Instagram account where they post videos and photos of drug use and drug dealing in the neighborhood.
Cook said the community is frustrated at the city of San Diego’s “absence or lack of effective response.”
Burke adds that he has driven down Imperial multiple times and witnessed drug activity. Since the July bust on Imperial, though, he said he has seen a resurgence of people moving up and down Park Boulevard and Market Street to continue drug sales. At times, he has witnessed drug activity right outside his window.
“There’ll also be drug dealers there in the corner, supplying them,” Burke said. “One of the things we’ve seen in the more frequent cases is more emergency calls going into overdoses.”
Burke uses the Downtown San Diego Partnership’s “Clean & Safe” app to document what he sees. He also sends his findings to San Diego police.
He said he’s happy authorities shut down one avenue for drug sales and wants more strategic busts to take place throughout the city.
Burke called it an “inevitability” that those who “would be dealing drugs and using drugs are going to find them.”
What he wants to see more often is law enforcement applying pressure, at “a level of not making it comfortable for people” to do so.
