MASKED MAN BREAKS IN TO GET METH CHEMICAL

Pittsburg -- An armed man wearing a mask broke into the city's
water-treatment plant on Halloween looking for chemicals used to make
methamphetamine, police said yesterday.

The break-in occurred at 7:30 p.m. Saturday just before an
unsuspecting maintenance worker confronted the man, who was wearing an
unspecified Halloween mask, said Pittsburg police Lieutenant William
Zbacnik.

The masked man, wielding a revolver, somehow climbed over the plant's
electrified fence. He tied up the worker with an electrical cord and
demanded to be told where the plant stored its crystal iodine -- a key
ingredient in the manufacture of methamphetamine.

But the man left after the worker worker told him the facility didn't
use crystal iodine as part of the water-treatment process Zbacnik said.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry