In the evening hours of Thursday, April 7th, detectives with the Douglas Interagency Narcotics Team (DINT) executed a search warrant on 3 warehouse buildings in the 300 block of Hayward Lane, in Glendale.
There had been ongoing suspicious activity at the location to include high volume of workers coming and going, and materials and personnel trucked in and out during late night hours. The buildings had been modified with air filtration systems, water lines running inside the building, all the windows boarded up, and the overwhelming odor of marijuana coming from inside, among other things.
Detectives attempted to contact the occupants of one building by knocking on the doors, but an unknown person locked the doors and hid inside, ignoring all attempts to communicate. Detectives surrounded the location and applied for a search warrant. Detectives obtained, and then executed the search warrant at approximately 7:00 PM.
Upon entering the building, detectives found 29 year old Eduardo Hernandez-Reyes, of Medford hiding inside.
Inside the buildings detectives found a substantial and sophisticated illegal marijuana growing operation. There were marijuana plants in multiple stages of growth from starter plants, all the way to mature plants ready for harvest. There was also a substantial quantity of processed marijuana ready for sale.
The warehouses contained an elaborate, unpermitted, and dangerous electrical system. It has been reported there have been at least two electrical fires at this location in recent months, likely due to a poorly constructed, and overburdened electrical system. Detectives could see burn marks on the outside of one of the buildings where a previous fire had occurred.
The indoor grow areas contained a huge volume of sophisticated and expensive lighting equipment, as well as watering systems and air filtration systems. Hundreds of fans, timers, monitoring equipment, etc. All of these requiring vast quantities of electricity. There was also a large volume of fertilizers and pesticides.
In total, detectives seized approximately 4,100 pounds of processed marijuana ready for sale, and 18,461 live marijuana plants in various stages of growth.
This property is directly adjacent to Glendale High School, the school and kids clearly visible from the property.
Eduardo Hernandez-Reyes was arrested and lodged at the Douglas County Jail on the following charges:
- Unlawful Possession of Marijuana
- Unlawful Manufacture of Marijuana
- Unlawful Manufacture of Marijuana within 1,000′ of a School
Officials say that Southern Oregon has been inundated with large scale illegal marijuana grows during the last couple of years, including Douglas County. The scale of these operations is unlike anything seen before and they are destructive to local communities. These operations are most often run and controlled by multinational criminal organizations with only profit in mind. They pay no regard to local resources, rules, laws, or ethics. They often do vast amounts of damage to our natural resources, and damage streams and rivers by dumping garbage, toxic chemicals (fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides), and human feces. Water diversion is another concern as they often illegally take water from wells and rivers. It is common to see them illegally damming small streams to impound water for their own use. These organizations disregard all of our well established standards.
Courtesy of DINT
