The Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office busted a methamphetamine lab just off 23rd Street that department spokeswoman Sgt. Janice Atkinson described this morning as “the biggest one I’ve ever seen.”
“It was huge,” said Sgt. Atkinson, who once worked five years in narcotics with the Chattanooga Police Department. “The whole house was full of chemicals.”
Sgt. Atkinson said perpetrators often use small labs stored in vehicle trunks or kitchens, but she said this residence involved “a whole front room full of chemicals.”
Timothy Johnson, 34, was arrested in a house next to the residence where the lab was kept on 19th and Lyerly Street. The county sheriff’s office issued warrants for Mr. Johnson and several others, but the case will be prosecuted at the federal level by the Drug Enforcement Administration, Sgt. Atkinson said.
Mr. Johnson faces felony charges of initiating, promoting and manufacturing meth, she said.
Several others were arrested before Wednesday’s bust, but their names have not been released by authorities.
For complete details, see tomorrow’s Chattanooga Times Free Press.
Chris Carroll covers politics for the Times Free Press. A Chattanooga native, he graduated from Red Bank High School in 2005 and earned a bachelor’s degree in history from East Tennessee State University in 2009. Chris has investigated violent crime, hospitals, Red Bank politics and East Ridge politics since joining the newspaper in January 2010. For a jailhouse interview story with accused murderer Antonio Henry, he won a third place Tennessee Associated Press Managing Editors ...
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