Cop Goes Undercover to Bust California Students | The 420 Times

On his second trip through high school, former C-student Alex Salinas got a lot of A’s. He was 22, however, and an undercover narcotics officer going by the name Johnny Ramirez.

Eight months later, the ruse was up, and Exeter, a bucolic citrus-growing community in California’s Central Valley, was turned on its ear after a school-day police sweep ended with a dozen Exeter High students in custody on drug charges.

[…] “A lot of jaws dropped when they saw me,” Salinas said. “They knew me as that kid at school that they hung around with, and then the next thing they’re in handcuffs and I’m in a uniform.”

The sting got more attention from the media than a drug bust of 12 students normally would because of something the chief now laments: It happened the same week as the debut of the Hollywood comedy “21 Jump Street,” which features — you got it — undercover cops fighting crime at a high school.

[…] There had been no major complaints about drug dealing at the 1,000-student school that sits within sight of the police station, but Bush said he had been thinking for years about doing an undercover sting to send a message.

[…] In the end, large quantities of drugs were not confiscated and none of the arrests involved trafficking significant quantities, though many purchases were for amounts that exceeded “personal use,” Salinas said.

“Turns out they were just tiny amounts, but if you’ve got just one kid dealing drugs at school, that’s too many.”

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