2 Arrested in El Monte Drug Lab Explosion

El Monte police arrested two men in the wake of the area’s latest methamphetamine lab explosion, this one in an apartment complex.

Chadwick Allen Schlie of Arcadia and Matthew Seymour of El Monte, both 26, were charged with manufacturing the drug after the Saturday night explosion, Lt. Chuck Fullington said.

Investigators who responded to an 11 p.m. disturbance call at the Maxson Road complex found Schlie standing in front of one of the apartments, with burns on his face, torso and arms.

He admitted to officers that he had been cooking the drug, Fullington said, and Seymour, who is listed as the apartment’s tenant, was arrested later. Both were being held on $500,000 bail.

After a flash explosion blew through the apartment, Schlie extinguished the fire with blankets and a garden hose, investigators said. There was no major damage to the complex, they said.

The El Monte site was one of three stove-top drug labs uncovered in the San Gabriel Valley during a 24-hour period over the weekend, according to Special Agent Greg McClung of the state Narcotic Enforcement Agency.

Investigators seized chemicals and processing apparatus from a clandestine drug kitchen in Glendora and arrested one suspect, McClung said. Sheriff’s deputies discovered another small lab in the rear garage of a house in Valinda and confiscated chemicals even though the suspect tried to destroy evidence as they closed in, he said.

McClung noted that the El Monte blast marked a dangerous trend in the Los Angeles County drug trade: While methamphetamine production continues to spread, the relatively minimal know-how required to manufacture it apparently is not--resulting in new labs that are particularly volatile.

“This is becoming real alarming to us,” said McClung.