The Meth Patrol Team Has Dangerous Job Of Raiding Drug Labs
Making methamphetamine is messy. And deadly. Acids and solvents, ether and chloroform - all of them can be used to cook up a good recipe of the narcotic stimulant.
That’s why officers at nearly every police department in the state won’t come near the stuff when they think they’ve found a place where dopers are making the drug. Too dangerous, they say. One slip and the whole shop can explode. One sniff and their lungs are on fire.
Instead, they call a small group of Washington State Patrol troopers and ask them to handle it. Go in, get the bad guys and, oh, be careful not to spill anything.
“When you think about everything that can go wrong on a meth lab raid, you realize that what we do is more than dangerous,” said Lt. Dennis Bonneville, who supervises the team from Olympia.
“It’s insane.”
With the recent comeback of methamphetamine on the drug market, Bonneville said his team is being called for help around the state more than ever.
So far this year, the group has responded to 23 possible meth labs, including two in Spokane. During the same time last year, it went to nine.
Only about half of the calls result in the bust of a true methamphetamine lab, but the team still must take exhaustive safety precautions each time it goes on a raid.
“Very rarely do we kick down the door and find the bad guy there up to his elbows in bubbles, cooking away,” Bonneville said. “But we have to respond like that’s exactly what we’re going to find.”
Seven members of the WSP team were flown to Spokane last week after local detectives believed a drug lab was operating at a house on East Ross Court.
They donned fire-resistant suits, bulletproof vests, helmets and full-faced respirators before entering the North Side home. A search failed to turn up any evidence of a drug lab, but three people were arrested for selling methamphetamine.
Each time the team members complete an operation, they must throw away certain filters for their protective suits. Disposal costs $570 a pop. More than $13,000 has been spent so far this year on disposal. More money is needed to fly the team in and pay for its overtime.
“We’re not cheap,” Bonneville said. “We’re expensive because we have to be.”
Better training among law enforcement departments to learn the signs of drug labs and the dangers of chemicals inside may be another reason the team is being called more often, Bonneville said.
Even drug dealers who make methamphetamine are taking better safety precautions as they cook and stir.
West Side detectives recently were tipped off to a working drug lab by a cooker who kept coming outside for a break. He had a bright red ring around his face.
“He had obviously been wearing some sort of respirator,” that made the mark, Bonneville said. “We got him.”