By: Daiyu Tang
In a city where every block contains that mixture of legal and illegal cheek to cheek (sometimes horizontally), it’s not rare to find some new atrocity or crime underway. It’s also rare to be on back-to-back raid coverage with the Hathian Police Department (‘HPD’), but this was the situation I found myself in when I was called by the Detective Inspector and asked to meet in the HPD parking lot. I didn’t know the target, or the composition of the team until I got there, but I was asked to bring my camera and my Kevlar. It was going to have risk then… But I guess most things in Hathian do…
The target was an apparent Salopri drug lab, which turned out to be a fancy way of saying a ‘Breaking Bad’ style trailer out in the undergrowth on the outskirts of Hathian. Someone had tipped the Detective Inspector off and so a raid was declared.
Like we were building some kind of Raid Party for a Dungeon Crawl, we had assembled a ‘crack team’. These included (and you can click to enlarge):
Oh and of course, one reporter.
Cooking – Why Nearly Naked?
This is a good question readers. I felt it was best illustrated by this picture, which showed what the HPD team was confronted with. I get the gas mask. I get the apron. I don’t get the lack of pants.
If you are involved in cooking, in this case drugs, please answer the question that this image poses. Please. For science and for decency prove that you should and could cook in jeans.
Raid Outcome
The raid itself was relatively simple. There was this one individual pictured above, who after making a threat to explode the place, decided that with many guns trained on him that exploding himself and a few cops (and possibly me) wasn’t a great trade. I respect a man not willing to die over some jailtime. Perspective. You’re doing illegal stuff, you get arrested. Learn the lesson, don’t escalate like some Yuugen terrorist.
Our images below (click to expand) show the progression of the raid, through the arrest, to finally checking the trailer and confirming the site was clear. Scratch one meth (or other illegal substance) lab from Hathian. How many more to go and will the Salopri even feel the loss of one cook and a busted up RV? Also, it has to be said I am taking that it was that particular gang on the words of O’Neil, which while nothing disproves them, I also didn’t exactly see any gang flags draped everywhere, then again perhaps the order hadn’t yet arrived!
The Salopri have been approached for comment and this article will be updated if we hear back from them.
UPDATE: the following e-mail came to the Observer from a known Salopri account: “We don’t know who this hairy rumb belongs too, but it looks great. Congrats on inspector O’Neil finding a suitable husband. We wish her the best. RV is perfect for the honeymoon in a scarpyard.”
