Drugs And Lab Found At Day Care Detectives Add Manufacturing To List Of Charges Against Owner

A state drug team on Friday found thousands of dollars worth of methamphetamine and a working drug lab in a garage at a Spokane Valley home child-care facility.

Spokane County sheriff’s detectives added manufacturing methamphetamine to the list of charges Ronald L. Acre faces.

Acre, 41, was charged Thursday with possessing and selling methamphetamine following a raid on his home at 1203 N. Adams.

He and his wife ran the state-licensed Jack and Jill Day Care at the home.

“We found everything, including the finished product,” said Jim Baldwin, a sergeant with the Washington State Patrol’s Yakima-based drug team.

The Health Department’s Division of Environmental Health will spend the next several days determining whether the garage and house were contaminated by the drug lab, said director David Swink.

“I don’t think there will be much doubt about the garage, but the house will be a lot of work,” he said.

Acre may have tracked the chemicals used to manufacture methamphetamine into the house, exposing several children to the toxic liquids and powders, officials said.

“He’s got some acid there that you wouldn’t want to be spilled or inhaled,” Baldwin said. Officials also found a decongestant called ephedrine, flammable red phosphorous and iodine.

Environmental health officials hope to determine early next week whether the children were exposed to the chemicals, to what degree and if the house should be condemned.

Swink said the children were not allowed to go into the garage and probably did not come in contact with large amounts of the chemicals.

Sheriff’s detectives raided the house about 10:30 a.m. Thursday, choosing day-care hours because they thought Acre would be outside working on his trucks.

“We were hoping to get him away from the day care,” said Sgt. George Wigen.

When they couldn’t, detectives did the next best thing, Wigen said.

They did not yell, wear bulky, protective clothing or use uniformed deputies to avoid startling the children. All are common practices in a raid.

Five children between the ages of 2 and 6 were playing downstairs when detectives hurried through the front door.

“We chose to make an undercover entry, instead of a dynamic one because of the little kids,” Wigen said.

Detectives found Acre - armed with a loaded handgun, a knife and brass knuckles - in an upstairs bedroom, asleep. A second handgun was found in the night stand. Two rifles also were found in the room.

Sheriff’s detectives questioned Acre’s wife, Karen, who was not home when the house was raided. She has not been arrested.

Friday morning, Baldwin and his crew spent three hours searching the garage while Spokane’s Hazardous Materials team and Department of Ecology officials looked on.

WSP officials removed several boxes and containers from the home while dismantling what Baldwin called a “small to medium-sized” lab.

“He’s probably not producing more than a few ounces a week,” Baldwin said.

They found another handgun and enough finished methamphetamine oil to produce up to 4 ounces of the powdered drug, Baldwin said. He estimated the drug’s street value at $4,000.

The drug lab is the second in the Valley and third in Spokane County raided this year by sheriff’s detectives. Statewide, nearly 80 have been destroyed, Baldwin said, but this was the first at a day care.

The Department of Social and Health Services has a file of complaints about the day care dating back to 1991. The agency investigated allegations that Ronald Acre had been drunk during day-care hours, that he had hit children, that there was a lack of supervision, that there were too many children being cared for, and that the center was not clean. The complaints were never substantiated.

Sheriff’s detectives received a tip in August that Acre was selling drugs out of the Jack and Jill Day Care.

Although they get hundreds of tips, detectives gave this one extra attention and pushed the investigation through as quickly as possible, Wigen said.

“We probably would have turned it down except it was a day care,” he said.

Detectives spent about 75 hours building a case against Acre before the Thursday morning drug raid, Wigen said.

, DataTimes