Police Raid Meth Labs In Post Falls, Cda Two Jailed After Busts In Middle-Class Areas; Labs Described As Small, Inactive

Wed., Aug. 26, 1998

By Brian Coddington brianc@spokesman.com

Idaho state and local drug agents raided methamphetamine labs late Monday and early Tuesday in middle-class Post Falls and Coeur d’Alene neighborhoods.

Agents believe the labs were related and arrested a man at each location, said Wayne Longo, state Criminal Investigations Bureau supervisory agent. Both were inactive labs, he said.

Longo classified them as moderate in size, meaning they had characteristics typically found in labs capable of producing ounce-sized quantities of methamphetamines. No one was hurt during the 9 p.m. and midnight raids.

Larry D. Mathews, 30, of Coeur d’Alene, and David R. Black, 33, of Post Falls, both were booked into the Kootenai County Jail on charges of conspiring to manufacture methamphetamine.

Mathews remained jailed Tuesday on two counts. A judge set his bail at $10,000.

Bail for Black, who was arrested on a single count, was set at $5,000.

The dual raids pushed the total number of North Idaho meth labs raided this year to more than a dozen, Longo said. That’s more than double the half-dozen that agents broke up all of last year.

“We’re seeing them anywhere from being out in the woods to nice houses and anything in between,” Longo said.

CIB agents, Kootenai County sheriff’s deputies and Post Falls police officers converged on the labs about three hours apart in modest subdivisions.

Authorities raided the first one at 20 Forest Lane in Post Falls and arrested Brown. Agents found evidence of a second lab in Coeur d’Alene while they were finishing cleanup work at the Forest Lane lab, Longo said.

About midnight, authorities entered a house at 2205 Coeur d’Alene Ave. and arrested Mathews.

Chemicals used in making methamphetamines are toxic. The labs raided Monday and early Tuesday presented lower-level risks, partly because neither was active, Longo said.

Idaho edition headline: Two men jailed after meth raids

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