Police use courts to shut down nuisance drug houses

Months of fear and Block Watch meetings in the River District neighborhood of Liberty Lake ended with a post on a community website: “Something BIG is going down right now,” it said. “Six cop cars have been there a long time and are hauling things out. Maybe this is it!”

Neighbors and the Liberty Lake Police Department worked together for months to shut down the drug house at 1605 N. Aladdin Road, culminating in an arrest in late December.

Liberty Lake police took advantage of a legal tool that cities are using more frequently to clean up problem houses. Called a chronic nuisance abatement ordinance, Liberty Lake didn’t have the law on its books until the police chief asked for it as a way to shut down the house on Aladdin Road. It was passed by the City Council in October.

A drug house was recently shut down in Spokane Valley using the same law, and the city of Spokane used it three times last year.

In an abatement, residents are typically evicted and the house is boarded up for a year. Abatement is not a quick fix, though. It takes months for police to collect the information they need, often with the help of neighbors. Then a civil suit has to be filed to shut down the house, with or without the cooperation of the owner.

The ‘who’s who’ of Spokane’s criminal element

Liberty Lake Police Chief Brian Asmus said his department started monitoring the River District house in August, after neighbors complained people were coming and going at all hours for brief visits. Officers began parking down the street and watching the house.

“It didn’t take us long to figure out they were the who’s who of the Spokane region’s criminal element,” Asmus said.

Officers stopped cars whose registered owners were wanted by law enforcement. Police were involved in eight pursuits involving vehicles leaving the residence and several foot chases. Several stolen cars were recovered there. In all, police responded to 112 calls at the house.

Police were blatant about their surveillance, thinking the people at the house would get the hint and move on. On the contrary, the residents installed surveillance cameras, one of them aimed at the spot where officers usually parked, Asmus said. If anything, activity at the residence picked up after the surveillance started.

Neighbors helped by reporting suspicious activity and license plate numbers of cars that visited the house.

The house was occupied by Bryce McGrotha, but is owned by his parents. Asmus said the parents claimed not to know what was going on in the house and have been “very helpful and supportive of the process.”

Police caught a break at the end of December when they pulled over a man as he left the house who agreed to provide information about what was going on inside.

“Up to that point, even though we had information from neighbors, it was never enough to apply for a search warrant,” Asmus said.

Search warrant in hand, police went to the house Dec. 29 and arrested McGrotha on drug charges and for unlawful use of a residence for drug activity. Arrest warrants are also being sought for two other people who were living in the house and involved in the drug activity, Asmus said.

Police recovered drug paraphernalia, heroin and several marijuana plants, one of which was so large investigators described it as a tree.

McGrotha was released from the Spokane County Jail when prosecutors did not file charges within 72 hours.

Deputy prosecuting attorney John Grasso said he didn’t get all the information he needed from Liberty Lake police to enable him to file charges initially. Charges of possession of a controlled substance and manufacturing marijuana were filed against McGrotha on Jan. 28.

Normally, nuisance houses that are abated are ordered boarded up for a year by a judge, and no one is allowed to live there. However, in the Liberty Lake case, the homeowners agreed they would evict all the residents, including their son, and sell the house as soon as possible. Until the house is sold, no one is allowed inside but the homeowner and his wife.

The order, signed by a judge, gave police authority to enter the house to evict the residents and remove their property. Before that happened, the homeowner told Asmus on Jan. 11 that he had evicted everyone and changed the locks that day.

Home near school visited by police over 175 times

Spokane Valley deputies shut down a similar house at 910 N. Pierce Road in November. They had responded to the house more than 175 times since April on calls including drug use, assault, suspicious vehicles, theft, prostitution and domestic violence. They made 36 arrests associated with the house, which is within 400 feet of Broadway Elementary School.

Detective Patrick Bloomer said the woman who owned the house had let a relative live there and was unable to get him to leave after the trouble started.

Bloomer stepped up surveillance while neighbors called in tips about the house and deputies made extra patrols in the area. “We had a lot of kids walking back and forth in front of that house,” he said.

“The neighbors were very proactive,” he said. “We need that partnership with neighbors and the community.”

The painstaking work required by the community, police and the courts is a necessary part of the process, Bloomer said.

“We need to have a lot of justification for entering people’s homes and evicting them,” he said. “It’s not quick.”

Spokane County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Deputy Mark Gregory said the house on Pierce Road was the first time his department used the abatement process. The Sheriff’s Office is contracted to provide policing in the city of Spokane Valley.

The resident living in the house, Curtis A. Robinson, was arrested on suspicion of unlawful use of a building for drug purposes and rendering criminal assistance. He also was released when prosecutors did not file charges within 72 hours.

Grasso said charging documents were never turned over by police. Gregory said investigators are working to have the charging paperwork filed and are also exploring new criminal charges against Robinson.

Robinson has been evicted and the house returned to the control of the owner, Bloomer said. The owner cooperated with the process, and deputies did not seek an order to board up the house for a year.

“Hopefully, they either sell it or move ownership to other hands and solve the criminal problem,” he said.

Police try to help homeowners

Sgt. Dan Ervin, who heads Spokane’s civil enforcement unit, said the city’s abatement ordinance was used on three homes past year. There have been about eight houses abated in the last three years, but there were virtually none before that.

“It’s not used very often,” Ervin said. “I do think it’s a tool we’re starting to use more than we used to. We’re starting to understand the process.”

The only other comparable process for shutting down a drug house was when the Spokane Regional Health District would board up houses as unsafe after meth labs were found inside. The toxic chemicals used in the cooking process contaminated the houses.

That activity was prevalent about 15 years ago, but today most methamphetamine is imported, said Ervin, who was on the drug task force during the meth lab heyday.

Abatement can also be used to deal with vacant houses that attract squatters and criminal behavior, Ervin said.

Police try to work with homeowners to reach a resolution before going to court, Ervin said, offering assistance with housing, mental health problems and drug addiction.

“Some will accept them and some won’t,” he said. “The whole concept is to make the neighborhood better.”

One of the houses shut down last year was at 2332 W. College Ave. Police received 276 calls for service at the residence between 2012 and March 2015. Since the house was boarded up in April, there have been no calls, Ervin said.

“That gives you an idea of what abatement can do,” he said.

He’s been by the house since then and has had neighbors tell him they are no longer afraid to work in their gardens.

“It’s really nice to have that impact on a neighborhood,” he said.

The end of the story – maybe

Tom Sahlberg, who retired from the Spokane Police Department a little over a decade ago, lives down the block from the house in Liberty Lake.

After problems began in the neighborhood, Sahlberg said he went to talk to McGrotha, telling him that he could be the best neighbor ever or McGrotha’s worst enemy. His words apparently had little impact.

Sahlberg has some sympathy for McGrotha, but said McGrotha made poor decisions and lied to people who tried to help him.

One neighbor, who asked not to be identified, said her children had been too frightened to play outside. As she stood outside her home Jan. 13, she said she was afraid it wasn’t over.

She was right. It wasn’t.

Police arrived at the 1605 N. Aladdin house that day after receiving a report of activity inside, even though everyone had been evicted two days before. No one was there, but the washer and dryer were running and there was fresh food in the refrigerator. A white pit bull, which neighbors recognized as McGrotha’s dog, lounged in the living room.

As police stood in the driveway, McGrotha arrived. He said he had permission from his father to leave his dog in the garage for a few hours. He told police he didn’t know how the dog got into the main house and didn’t know whose clothes were being washed.

“So the dog came in and did the laundry?” Sgt. Darin Morgan said.

Asmus told McGrotha that he would be arrested if he stepped foot on the property. “If we had found you in there, you would have gone to jail for burglary,” Asmus said. “You can’t be in this house.”

McGrotha left, leaving his dog behind. Police locked a back window they found open and disabled the garage door. One of the homeowners retrieved the dog the next day.

Asmus said if the agreed order regarding the residence is not followed, he will go back to court and have the house boarded up.

The house has been quiet since Jan. 13, and Asmus said his officers are keeping watch.