CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Police brought out one of four people arrested at a Kalihi apartment yesterday on charges of drug promotion. Six others were arrested in different parts of Kalihi yesterday.
‘Ice’ raid results in
10 arrests in KalihiTwo suspects are charged
with selling drugs near a school
Honolulu police seized more than 2 pounds of crystal methamphetamine or "ice," arrested two people and took custody of a 4-year-old girl in a raid of two apartments in Kalihi yesterday.
The raid was the culmination of a 5-month drug investigation by the Honolulu Police Department's Weed & Seed Kalihi unit.
Police also arrested six other people in different parts of Kalihi on federal warrants and turned them over to U.S. marshals.
Arrested on federal charges were Alvin Davis, 20; Lemuel Ababa, 32; Wilfredo Bolo, 50; Nicole Ramos, 21; Rodney Mangoba, 28; and Abner Neyra, 26.
In a criminal complaint filed in federal court yesterday, Davis and Ababa were charged with selling ice within 1,000 feet of an elementary school.
The apartments at 940A and 940B Hikina Lane are within a few minutes' walk from Kaiulani School.
The other federal suspects were indicted by a federal grand jury on drug promotion charges last week, said Sgt. John Kauwenaole, Kalihi Weed & Seed supervisor.
Police turned the girl over to relatives and arrested her mother, 38, and her mother's boyfriend, 41, for investigation of first-degree drug promotion.
A 58-year-old woman and 49-year-old man who lived in the apartment next door were arrested for drug promotion and drug paraphernalia possession.
Police started the investigation of an alleged drug dealing operation on Hikina Lane in January after receiving complaints from neighbors and nearby businesses, Kauwenaole said.
The Kalihi-Palama Health Center is just around the corner. Workers said they began noticing the drug activity about a year ago. Clients who park at the rear of the center complained they had to walk past drug dealers outside the apartments to make their appointments.
Between January and last Friday, undercover police officers purchased ice from the federal suspects 15 times at the apartment complex, Kauwenaole said. Most of the buyers walked to the complex rather than drive through the narrow Hikina Lane, he said.
Weed & Seed is a U.S. Justice Department program to "weed" out criminal activity and "seed" prevention and economic revitalization.
Most of the targeted criminal activity in designated Weed & Seed areas is associated with ice.
