Posted on: Friday, June 10, 2005
Police raid self-storage locker, seize chemicals
By Rod Ohira
Advertiser Staff Writer
Police closed a freeway entrance ramp and evacuated some residents in Makiki yesterday after authorities found hazardous chemicals that could be used to make crystal metham-phetamine at a self-storage locker.
Rebecca Breyer • The Honolulu Advertiser Workers in hazardous-materials protective suits retrieved chemicals from a 4-foot-wide locker on the makai side of the facility, next to the freeway's eastbound entrance ramp at Pi'ikoi Street.
That ramp was closed and some residents along Matlock Avenue were evacuated.
Police Maj. Kevin Lima said the ramp was closed for safety reasons while the chemicals were being removed from the locker.
"We didn't want any chemicals escaping and getting into the wind," Lima said.
Lima did not identify the chemicals other than to say they are "consistent with crystal methamphetamine" and it "was not small amounts." Police kept the freeway ramp and some side streets closed while a contractor, Pacific Environmental Corp., removed the chemicals for disposal. The ramp was reopened at 9:54 p.m.
No one has been arrested, he said.
The Quik-Stor of Hawaii facility is where Harold Cabbab, a 10-year veteran of the Honolulu police force, and an informant were arrested in December 2004 for breaking into a storage locker to steal ice and cocaine.
Cabbab pleaded guilty to stealing what he thought was more than 20 pounds of crystal methamphetamine and almost 9 pounds of cocaine in a sting last fall by police and federal agents. He faces a prison term of 10 years to life.
Yesterday's raid was unrelated to the Cabbab case, Lima said.
Reach Rod Ohira at 535-8181 or rohira@honoluluadvertiser.com.
Police raided Quik-Stor Hawaii, a storage business under the elevated portion of the H-1 Freeway in Makiki, at about 2 p.m.
Members of the Honolulu Police Department and other agencies were at work yesterday under the H-1 Freeway in Makiki, where they reported finding chemicals "consistent with crystal methamphetamine."
Lima said the raid was part of a continuing investigation involving Immigration & Customs Enforcement, the Postal Service, the state Narcotics Enforcement Division and the Honolulu Police Department's Narcotics/Vice Division.
