5 Rescued Including 3 Children After Alleged Cannabis Oil Lab Explodes In Watsonville
WATSONVILLE (CBS SF) -- A young Watsonville couple was arrested Monday morning after an alleged concentrated cannabis manufacture operation exploded in their apartment, endangering three children.
At about 12:10 a.m., police, firefighters and paramedics responded to a report of a large fireball on the balcony of 485 Holohan Road, apartment 204.
Police and firefighters found "an overwhelming amount" of white smoke emanating from the balcony and inside the apartment and identified the source as the apartment's balcony, police said.
A 3-year-old boy, two girls aged 13 and 15 and a 38-year-old evacuated the apartment along with the suspects, 19-year-old Maria de la Luz Lopez and her fiancé, 20-year-old Israel Alamillo.
Lopez and Alamillo admitted that they had been manufacturing butane honey oil, a form of concentrated cannabis, when the explosion occurred.
"Although they both knew producing BHO is a dangerous process, they proceeded to do so as they advised WPD officers it was not their first time manufacturing BHO," Watsonville police Sgt. Tony Figueroa said in a statement.
The boy was taken to Watsonville Community Hospital as a precautionary measure for smoke inhalation.
Lopez and Alamillo were arrested and booked into the county jail on suspicion of child endangerment and manufacture of a controlled substance, Figueroa said.
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