Oakland man charged with building PCP lab inside Brooklyn Basin apartment

OAKLAND — A property manager at a Brooklyn Basin apartment building called police to warn that he believed a resident had started a “meth lab” inside a fifth-story unit, according to court records.

Turns out the manager was off, but not by much, according to prosecutors — police searched the apartment and reportedly found a different kind of lab instead. The unit had been converted into a manufacturing facility for PCP, also known as angel dust, the dissociative anesthetic that can cause hallucinations and psychosis, and gained popularity during the 1990s.

Now the man who allegedly ran the lab, 56-year-old Temujin Harris, is facing charges of manufacturing the drug. He was released from jail after a Sept. 2 court hearing, but Judge Rozlynn Silvaggio imposed two conditions: stay away from the apartment, and don’t possess any narcotics precursors, court records show.

Authorities say that they were called to the waterfront apartment at 389 9th Avenue by a property manager who noticed a foul smell during a pest control incident. Police evacuated adjacent apartments for fear that there was a volatile drug lab inside Harris’ residence, then searched his unit, according to court records. They reportedly found, multi-gallon jugs “containing a brown substance in the bedroom/living room area, numerous butane canisters, blow torches, numerous hoses scattered throughout the residence, and manufacturing paraphernalia were observed in plain view,” an officer wrote in his report.

The Drug Enforcement Administration was called in for the search, according to court records. The DEA has warned about the potential serious risks of manufacturing PCP, perhaps none more apparent than in 2013, when two career criminals in the Atlanta area accidentally set off a massive explosion in their clandestine angel dust lab, causing a fire that burned for two days. They were sentenced to federal prison in 2019.

Harris, whose criminal history dates back to 1991 with a conviction for kidnapping, has a pending has alleging simple possession of drugs and an “ingestion device,” both misdemeanors. It stems from a May arrest where Harris’ co-defendant is accused of possessing a stolen Nissan from El Sobrante, which had been hot-wired with a screwdriver, according to court records.

Police say a few grams of methamphetamine and some glass pipes were found in his possession. He appeared in court in that case just two weeks before the PCP lab raid, records show.