Lexington police say disturbance call led to discovery of suspected marijuana grow
LEXINGTON, Okla (KOKH) — What Lexington police expected to be a routine disturbance call instead led to the discovery of an alleged illegal marijuana grow, hidden compartments inside a home and garage, and a cache of drugs and firearms, according to Lexington Police Chief Bryan Palmore.
Palmore said officers responded to what began as a verbal dispute, but the situation quickly escalated.
“A simple verbal dispute turned into being made aware of a possible illegal marijuana grow. And then it just kind of started the spider web from there,” Palmore said.
Palmore said a woman voluntarily invited officers into the home.
During a walkthrough, he said officers found what appeared to be marijuana grows in a shed and marijuana leaves drying in a bag hanging from the ceiling, prompting a larger police response.
As more officers arrived, Palmore said the woman’s uncle and grandmother also showed up.
Palmore said once additional officers were on scene, police checked information with the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority.
“Once I had a couple of other officers there, we confirmed some information with OMMA, which is the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority and found that the individual that owned the alleged grow did not have an active OMMA card,” Palmore said.
He said police then contacted the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control and confirmed the grow was illegal.
“Made contact with OBN and made some other confirmations and found out that the grow was in fact an illegal grow. And once we found that out, we had all three of the parties sign consent to search,” Palmore said.
Palmore said investigators found more than what was initially visible, including hidden areas inside the home and garage.
“We ultimately found a false wall inside the home that had a small grow inside of it. And then we found another false wall inside the garage. That’s where all the pre-packaged process products,” Palmore said.
Palmore said police later obtained a search warrant for a safe on Monday, leading to additional discoveries.
“We also found a safe inside the garage where all the packaging materials were. And from there we found more, all the, I wanna say at best they’re antique firearms,” Palmore said. “And that’s how we ended up finding all the other, the synthetic narcotics and all the other no-nos.”
Palmore said officers found 35 pounds of live and processed marijuana, meth, liquid morphine, hash oil, liquid THC, prescription pills, a white powdery substance, drug paraphernalia and 10 firearms. He said none of the firearms were reported stolen.
Palmore said the case reflects ongoing drug issues in the community.
“We do have, uh, a decent-sized marijuana and methamphetamine problem. So this tracks with that. We do handle a lot of juvenile involvement in THC and marijuana products. And this, for me, this is a milestone in, you know, the right direction to start curtailing some of that inside the community of Lexington,” he said.
Palmore also said police have been called to the residence before, saying, “We’ve gone out on this particular residence multiple times in the past and probably four to five times in the last two to three weeks.”
Police arrested two adults on eight complaints, most of them felonies, Palmore said. The uncle is facing 6 charges and the niece is facing 2.
He said the uncle has prior felony charges and that additional charges could follow.
Because the case remains an active investigation, including possible elder exploitation, police have not released the identities of those arrested.