_______ [N0T MUCH G0iNG ON TODAY..]
[I N L O C A L H E A D L I N E S] -- what lovely people i have in the communities near me dont you agree? read this and comments are appreciated.
Lowell meth lab seized...Police find bombs in condo; man charged
By DENNIS SHAUGHNESSEY, Sun Staff
LOWELL -- Responding to a tip from neighbors, police seized a methamphetamine lab in an apartment of a multifamily house at 800 Broadway St. yesterday morning, evacuating nearby homes and removing three pipe bombs found inside.
Residents of the house, as well as neighboring houses on each side, were told to leave the vicinity while officers with the federal Drug Enforcement Agency's hazardous- materials division secured the building. Police cordoned off a two-block area from Wilder Street to Walker Street as a precaution.
O'Neill was found passed out inside, police said.
A state police bomb squad was called in to detonate a pipe bomb found early in the investigation, described as a plastic tube with two end caps, a plunger and what appeared to be an electronic sensor. The bomb was brought outside and blown up by remote control.
Investigators found another two bombs in the same room at about 9:30 p.m., said Police Superintendent Edward Davis.
It was unclear last night if those were real bombs or dummies made to look real. They were not detonated.
“We won't know until the contents are analyzed,” Davis said. “They were full of something. They were not empty.”
The lab team going into the apartment had to stop work while the last two bombs were removed.
Police were tipped off to the meth lab by neighbors who were complaining about a suspicious odor.
“We found a meth lab on the top floor and chemicals in the refrigerator. He admitted that he was cooking methamphetamine,” said Davis.
“These are very volatile chemicals that are involved so it's protocol to evacuate the area and call in the haz-mat team,” he said.
Police were unsure how much methamphetamine was seized. Davis said the department is waiting to hear back from the DEA about the quantity as well as a list of drug-related materials found inside.
Police charged O'Neill with manufacturing a class B substance and three counts of possession of an infernal device. He was scheduled to be arraigned this morning in Lowell District Court.
“There were roommates who let us in and were quite candid about what was going on,” Davis said.
The house at 800 Broadway St., near UMass Lowell's south campus, is divided into seven condos, all owner-occupied except for O'Neill's.
As officers scoured the apartment, neighbors waited anxiously across the street in a parking lot.
Jim Robbin, whose lives in a condo directly next to O'Neill, left his job in Woburn after he received a call from a neighbor.
“This is kind of nerve-racking,” he said. “I mean, the guy right next-door to me has a bomb.”
Davis said methamphetamine manufacturers commonly use pipe bombs as a way of booby-trapping labs.
“It's not unusual to have meth labs booby-trapped and it's starting to look more like that was the case to make it more difficult for us to search the location,” Davis said last night after leaving the scene.
Davis said this is the first bust of a meth lab in Lowell since 1972. A meth lab in Chelmsford was seized in June.
An addictive stimulant, methamphetamine can cause serious neurological damage, cardiovascular problems, strokes, and death.
Authorities say methamphetamine manufacturing, which has been widespread in the Midwest and on the West Coast, is making its way East.
Neighbors said O'Neill was renting the condo, and up until several months ago there had never been a problem.
“He seemed like an odd kid,” said one neighbor, who did not want her name used. “But living so close to the college you don't think too much about it.”
The owner of the condo, who asked that his name not be used, said he has rented the condo to students over the years, but was in the process of evicting O'Neill. ------------
yesterday [thursday] i had an appointment , which required me driving on the highway which i hate ... well i missed the turn off to the exit, why does massachusetts have to be the only state in the union with roataries? so i found an alley to turn in, which i thought was an alley it turned out to be a entrence to a set of low income housing projects, someblack/asain teens where out side walking up staring @ me and my vechile, i backed out and trurned as quickly as i could to those kids i could have"been envading the turf" and been a threat.
the appt was fine hopefully here from the woman i spoke to in less than a week about the issues for college we disgussed in detail...
the way home wasnt fun either i think when the humidity comes out to play , lots of peoples undies seem to get tied in a knot and form a wedgie -- people just need to use the pool more often take a swim drink a mixed drink or some lemonade! -- yesterday i swear the president or the govenor prefably the circus where in, the way people where honking there horns [reminded me of some geese] and yelling swears , yelling in chinese/spanish or portugese[ i think they were ording from mcdonalds across the boulavard] and lots of hand gestures the main ones being the finger telling grandma to move it or loose it and yelling @ traffic / lights to change...
i got stuck behind a garbage truck around 230 yesterday and course the men were rude idiots with there shirts off, they were about 40 years old[mind you old enough to call um dad]yelling HEYYYYYYY BABBBBYYYYYYY YA LLLLLOOOOOOOOOKIN GOOD , course the driver misses one the streets hes suppost to go don and nearly backs in to me not giving me a chance to back into a side street and turn around..c thats been it in a nuthell..later