A resident of a South Davis duplex where police reported finding the makings for a drug lab says authorities are harassing his family and want to run them out of town.
“We never had a lab,” Doyle Chastain, 31, said in an interview following the Feb. 11 raid at 4917 and 4919 El Cemonte Ave. — addresses that also were the subject of prior search in December, according to documents he provided to The Enterprise. “It was a targeted attack on us.”
Not so, say Davis police.
“It’s a problem house for the neighborhood. We’ve had numerous complaints,” Lt. Tom Waltz said. A call history for those addresses shows 25 calls for service over the past year, for issues ranging from code-enforcement complaints to reports of drug activity, domestic violence, stolen property, elder abuse and a child welfare matter.
Police officials said they were serving a search warrant in an elder financial abuse case last month when they allegedly discovered the ingredients for dimethyltriptolene, a hallucinogenic drug also known as DMT.
“They kicked in every door and pointed guns in every single person’s face,” Chastain said. He added that the incidents have taken a toll on the duplex’s elderly landlord, whose property has since been condemned.
According to Chastain, his roommate — one of the six arrested in February — used one of the landlord’s personal checks to pay a $2,400 water bill, which launched the elder abuse investigation.
A property receipt from the Feb. 11 search shows police seized bottles of acetonitrile and lab-grade water, pH test strips, rock salt, lye, chemistry books and a blue rubber glove — items Chastain claims could be found in any household.
Agents also listed “bark” on the receipt, but whether it was the Mimosa hostilis root bark used to make DMT was not specified. Chastain said agents took an oak stick during the prior raid “thinking it was the same substance.”
Eleven people, including Chastain and several of his relatives, have been charged with various drug-related offenses as a result of the two searches.
Three of them — Christopher Richard Flores, Jonathan Allen Randall and Mitchell Scott Timm — face the most serious count of manufacturing a controlled substance, a felony.
Chastain, charged with being in the presence of unlawful controlled substance use, insists he never heard of DMT until police alleged that it was being made in his house.
“I’ve never done it, I don’t know anybody that has it. I don’t know anything about it at all,” Chastain said. “The whole thing is ridiculous.”
Asked why he believes his family is being “targeted,” Chastain acknowledged having a troubled past in Davis that resulted in several arrests. “But I’ve done my time. I haven’t been in trouble aside from this crap for some time now.”
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene