Storage Units Were Drug Labs Yakima Drug Team Called In After Chemicals Found In Wednesday’s Search
Washington State Patrol drug investigators on Thursday searched two storage units used in a Spokane Valley drug manufacturing operation.
The Yakima-based WSP Clandestine Drug Team entered the units at ABC Mini Storage, 11506 E. Indiana, just 30 feet from a third unit that had been searched Wednesday.
The team had been called to Spokane following Wednesday’s search, when a local hazardous materials team found more drug chemicals than expected.
Clad in grey anti-contamination suits and flanked by a pair of firefighters poised with a hose, team members emerged 20 minutes later with small amounts of 30 to 40 chemicals.
Samples of the chemicals were taken to the WSP crime lab in Spokane to be tested.
Spokane County Sheriff’s deputies have at least one suspect, but no arrests have been made.
“We found the lab where he processed it,” WSP team leader Jim Baldwin said.
It took WSP troopers several minutes to remove numerous bottles, boxes, bins and other assorted containers. Two black suitcases, a crock pot, scale and tangles of tubes and hoses were also carried from the storage unit.
“We found his glassware and his condenser tube was there,” Baldwin said. “We have some of the essentials.”
Officials are calling the unit a box lab, because the supplies were all in boxes and ready to be set up for drug making.
WSP team members removed a bottle, black suitcase and mat from one unit on Thursday. They also found a bottle of Drano and acid. Both are used to make methamphetamines.
Sheriff’s deputies and the fire department’s Hazardous Materials Unit searched the nearby storage unit Wednesday. They recovered a red cooler containing three beakers, two containing chemicals.
The chemicals were tested by the WSP crime lab and determined to be substances used in the production of amphetamines, according to Sheriff’s department spokesman Lt. Dave Wiyrick.
Seven firefighters who searched the storage unit Wednesday found far more drug materials than expected, prompting the sheriff’s department to call in the WSP team for Thursday’s raid. No one was injured.
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