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Bond set at $100,000 in mobile meth lab bust
By EMMALEE C. TORISK
campbell
Bond was set at $100,000 in Campbell Municipal Court on Tuesday for the man and woman charged with operating a mobile methamphetamine lab.
Jeremy T. Bowker, 30, of Rogers, and Jean Ann Hartzell, 36, of Pittsburgh, face a host of felony charges: the illegal manufacture of drugs, the illegal assembly or possession of chemicals for the manufacture of drugs, assault on police officers, possession of criminal tools, and possession of drugs.
Hartzell also is charged with possession of drug-abuse instruments, a second-degree misdemeanor, and Bowker is charged additionally with failing to stop at a stop sign and for driving an unsafe vehicle.
Hartzell and Bowker will appear again in city court Tuesday for a preliminary hearing and pretrial hearing.
The two are living in Rogers.
Bowker and Hartzell were stopped about 11:30 a.m. Saturday for a moving violation at Reed Avenue and 11th Street.
Storm, the city’s police dog, then indicated the presence of narcotics in the car’s trunk, where police found materials used in the cold-cooking process of making crystal meth.
Patrolman Robert Curtis was knocked to the ground by the fumes. He and the two other officers with him, Eric Manning and Dave Smith, were decontaminated in a Mahoning County HazMat tent, along with the two suspects. All five were treated at St. Elizabeth Health Center.
Police Chief Drew Rauzan said the officers’ inhalation of fumes at the scene resulted in esophageal burns, but that they should heal within the next few days.
Rauzan added that though Saturday’s mobile meth-lab bust — which may have been the city’s first — caught the police department off guard, it won’t happen again. He’s already looking into in-house training, which would better prepare the city’s officers to deal with similar incidents, for early January.
Overall, though, Rauzan said he’s satisfied with the work of his department, explaining that he can’t “commend and compliment” his officers enough.
“No one was hurt, the meth lab was taken out of production, and the very next day, the same officers were back at work, trying to take more narcotics off the street,” he said. “It’s another fine example of proactive policing in the city of Campbell.”