AG COOPER AT SUSPECTED METH LAB BUST

TRINITY - A man and woman were charged Wednesday in a raid on a suspected meth lab in a house on a dead-end street just a few hundred feet through the woods from Trinity Elementary School.

N.C.  Attorney General Roy Cooper, who was at the scene of the raid, is lobbying state legislators for stiffer penalties for manufacturing methamphetamines and for about $2 million to hire and train 42 more SBI agents to tackle the trade.

Officers described the operation at 5350 Collett St.  as a "large-scale" meth lab at which they seized chemicals and contraband associated with making methamphetamines.

Charged were Darren Mark Harris, 39, and Deborah Elizabeth Moores, 43, both of the Collett Street address.  Both were charged with attempted trafficking in methamphetamine by manufacture, manufacture of a Schedule II controlled substance, possession of immediate precursor chemicals, possession of Schedule II controlled substances and maintaining a dwelling used for keeping and selling controlled substances.  All are felony charges.  Each was jailed under a $200,000 secured bond.

The raid was the culmination of six months of investigation and was the 14th meth lab authorities have found operating in Randolph County, said Maj.  Allen McNeill of the Randolph County Sheriff's Office.  All but one of those raids have occurred since 2000.

"It's not a new drug," McNeill said.  "It's what we used to, in the '70s, call speed.  But people didn't make it in local labs - most of it was pharmaceutical."

Just a few years ago, the illegal meth manufacturing business in the United States was a law enforcement problem faced primarily by West Coast officers.  But the labs have spread across the nation and invaded North Carolina quickly.

A state Senate judiciary committee approved a bill Tuesday that would reclassify the penalty for manufacturing meth from a Class H felony to a Class C felony, punishable by a maximum prison sentence of about two years to 17 1/2 years.  First-time offenders can now receive community service.  Implementing the stiffer penalties could cost an estimated $2.5 million.

"I wanted to go in with the law enforcement to show my support for what they do," Cooper said.  "They put their lives on the line every day.  The fight against these methamphetamine labs is one we have to win."

Cooper said that officers busted the first meth lab in the state in 1999.  Last year, the state total climbed to 177 meth labs raided.

"This year, we're on the road to more than double that figure," he said.

So far this year, the total stands at 134 meth labs raided, according to Brian Neil, a State Bureau of Investigation agent with the Clandestine Lab Response Team, on the scene Wednesday.

Cooper noted that a meth lab might be set up in the house next door - or in a hotel room down the hall - and that he wants to educate people on things that might be a tip-off.  Among the signs that a meth lab might be in operation, he said, are a strong chemical smell, quantities of empty blister packs of ephedrine cold and allergy products, lots of large containers, hoses and pipes.

Manufacturers of illegal methamphetamines use different methods and materials to make the drug, all of them potentially dangerous.  Combining chemicals can be volatile, leading to explosions and fires.  Inhalation of the fumes is hazardous.

Cooper said that a firefighter who had suffered lung damage in a meth lab raid testified Tuesday before the state Senate committee meeting.  There have been 27 first responders injured during meth lab busts in North Carolina, Cooper said.

Too many young people are casualties of the meth lab world, with children found in about one in four meth lab raids in the state, he said.  The proposed legislation provides for adding aggravating factors, resulting in tougher sentences, in cases where children are endangered by a meth lab.

Authorities had been alerted that there was a child living in the Collette Street house, but there was no child there when they arrived, McNeill said.

A small army of people were at the scene of the raid, a one-story house with four trucks and four cars sitting in the front yard.  At least three of the trucks and two of the cars appeared to be inoperable.

The group included sheriff's deputies, agents from the SBI and officers from the U.S.  Drug Enforcement Administration.  Also standing by on the scene were medical rescue personnel from Randolph County EMS and firefighters from Guil-Rand Fire Department.

SBI agents and other officers outfitted in protective suits and wearing breathing masks went in and out of the house, processing the scene.

The first officers into the house, members of an SBI SWAT Team, wore self-contained breathing apparatus.  They cleared the house of its occupants and used air monitoring equipment to determine the danger level.  These agents help local law officers statewide in such raids.

Later, SBI chemists entered to do their work.  Evidence was collected and samples taken.  The bulk of the materials used to make meth would be picked up later by an independent contractor for disposal.

The meth lab operator was using anhydrous ammonia, a farm fertilizer, to "cook" his chemical mixture, said Neil, the SBI agent with the Clandestine Lab Response Team.  The process takes a day or two and it appeared the operator was in the middle stages of making a batch of meth, Neil said.

Sheriff's Lt.  L.T.  James said it would be hard to put a price tag on the cost of raiding a meth lab.

"The expense is astronomical," he said.  "It's a huge manpower drain and the penalties aren't in place to punish the people that are doing it ...  Manufacturing meth is no different in the charges than manufacturing pot."