Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Gene Kennedy Reporting A warrant for a man's arrest leads police into a dangerous situation.
Eyewitness News has done stories on Jeffrey Alsop. To police he's a known meth maker with a long criminal rap sheet. Last night, police came to the South Park Townhome complex to arrest him and got much more than they bargained for.
Dept. Fire Chief Kevin Bowman, SSL Fire Dept: "They were basically led to believe nothing was going on in there. They went in to do their arrest and ran into a meth lab that was actively cooking."
The officers rushed out of the apartment with three suspects. In total, 15 people were exposed. Everyone had to be decontaminated on scene.
Meantime, with stoves running to cook meth, police had to shut down the power and evacuate neighboring buildings.
Since last night, the manager at the complex has told Eyewitness News, "I don't know these guys. The apartment was vacant." Some 15 people moved in without the manager knowing and were squatting. There was no furniture in the apartment, just a meth lab.
Police say they're seeing more and more of this in quiet neighborhoods, some very upscale neighborhoods. We've had three neighborhood drug busts in 24 hours.