Drug Lab Raided Near Police Copter Hangar

Know thy neighbor.

La Verne police have uncovered a clandestine methamphetamine laboratory in an aircraft hangar at Brackett Field--a few rows of doors from the helicopter base of an anti-drug law enforcement task force.

L.A. Impact is a multi-agency operation aimed at rooting out major narcotics traffickers in Los Angeles County. But it appears that its officers could have strolled a football field’s length, rather than flown, to the nearest drug lab.

It was a La Verne police officer on routine patrol of the airport who stumbled upon the suspected lab inside a hangar Monday around midnight, authorities said.

Three people were arrested on suspicion of manufacturing methamphetamine. John Petersen, 46, of La Verne, David Sarratt, 33, of Alta Loma, and Michelle Norman, 29, of Chino were each being held in lieu of $500,000 bond, La Verne police said.

“We didn’t know about it,” said L.A. Impact’s assistant director, John Ogden, a lieutenant with the El Segundo Police Department. “We’re helping to clean up the lab.”

The City of Commerce-based task force--whose acronym stands for Los Angeles Interagency Metropolitan Police Apprehension Crime Task Force--has a hangar in La Verne to store helicopters used in surveillance by its officers from 40 local cities, the FBI and the state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, Ogden said. La Verne is among those cities with officers assigned to the task force.

Pomona’s police helicopter is also based on the airport’s south side.

Despite that presence, the small, county-owned airport has been the site of an unusual crime wave over the last 18 months. Everything from four private airplanes, dozens of aircraft radios, an office full of computers and even the airport’s emergency crash response vehicle have disappeared. In response, La Verne police increased patrols.

La Verne Police Sgt. Rick Aragon said Officer Steve Kirk noticed a car with a broken back window and tampered ignition next to the hangar on the north side of the runway.

“When he turned around, he saw a man immediately dart back into the hangar,” Aragon said. “He was able to persuade the man to come out. At first the man denied anyone else was inside . . . but eventually two others came out.”

A search of the hangar produced an array of chemicals, tubes and burners used for manufacturing the drug, also know as ice or crank, authorities said. Some of those items were displayed at the airport Tuesday as detectives labeled them for evidence, while others were removed by a hazardous materials team.

Comarco’s Brackett airport manager, Craig Rethorn, said his company had already begun proceedings to evict one of those arrested, Petersen, from the hangar and notified police about its concerns about his activities. “We have been working with the La Verne PD on this guy for a while,” Rethorn said. “We had suspicions.”

Rethorn said the type of hangar in this case is too small for a plane, so it is rented out for storage purposes.

Aviators say the arrests confirm their worse fears about the lack of oversight at the airport.

“This place is out of control,” said Hal Clark of the Brackett Airport Assn. “I’d be embarrassed if I was in law enforcement to keep my equipment here. What are they going to find next?”