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Police find suspected meth lab

LEAVITTSBURG – Law enforcement officials went to a Park Drive residence on Thursday to serve a misdemeanor warrant to a woman and ended up dismantling a suspected meth lab.

It was the second meth-related find this week.

Officers with the TAG Law Enforcement Task Force and the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office went to a mobile home at 6129 Park Drive about 8:30 p.m. to serve the warrant to Melanie Sutton, believing she was living there.

The warrant was unrelated to Thursday’s events at the mobile home, authorities said.

Sutton and a man at the home were taken into custody and questioned, but later released. Another male, believed to be the homeowner, ran out the back door of the mobile home when officers arrived, which led them to search the property and uncover the drug producing chemicals and paraphernalia, officials reported.

Police said that while they were searching for the homeowner they found materials used to make methamphetamine along with other drug paraphernalia.

Investigators found a backpack and several containers with unknown liquids in an outbuilding. They also found found syringes, funnels, coffee filters, plastic tubing, gas masks and a gas can with writing that investigators said made it apparent to them that it was used for methamphetamine.

Residual sludge was found on the inside of the container, and inside the backpack was a coffee grinder, pill cutter, cold packs, bottles of lye and muriatic acid, and containers with white powder residue, they said.

A second backpack was found inside a doghouse along with a triple beam scale. Inside the backpack was a fire extinguisher with an altered nozzle that contained ammonium nitrate and unused lithium batteries.

Investigators said they secured the area and called Warren Township Fire Department and Trumbull County Hazardous Material Unit for assistance. A law enforcement Clan Lab team was also requested at the scene.

The Clan Lab team with the assistance of Trumbull County HazMat neutralized the chemicals on scene and waste items were disposed of.

Investigators also had information that another man with previous methamphetamine related charges and current warrants for methamphetamine manufacturing was also at the residence.

On Tuesday, Warren city firefighters found a discarded portable methamphetamine operation in a yard in the 400 block of Douglas Street N.W.

Police said the equipment could have been left there from a passing vehicle.

Authorities said they had a ”person of interest” in that case.

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