Indiana State Police create interactive map of meth lab and trash locations

The Indiana State Police have created an interactive map that shows where law enforcement agencies have located meth labs and meth trash.

Police hope the new tool will make potential homeowners more aware of their new home’s previous criminal incidents. The hazardous materials left behind may pose a health risk to the new home owners.

“You don’t need any passwords or anything like that. You just go on there, see your location, maybe your neighborhood or your business and see all of the labs that have been recorded since 2007,” said Corporal Chase Overbeeke of the Indiana State Police.

While the information has always been available to the public through the county health departments, police say people often found it difficult to access.

But now it’s available anywhere, anytime on the Indiana State Police website.

“We’re trying to make it as easy as possible for you to get that,” said Overbeeke.

Making the information easily accessible all started with a false alarm.

“A lot of the items that are used to manufacture methamphetamines are hazardous. Somebody had possibly gotten sick at a house and they were saying that there was the possibility that it was related to a lab that had been there,” Trooper Andrew Cochran, Indiana State Police Methamphetamine Suppression Section.

That particular case was never substantiated but once police saw there was potential for this health hazard they immediately took action.

“The State Police kind of took action before anything bad happened. The best way they could use this website is if somebody is concerned that maybe a lab was found in a house that they’re getting ready to purchase,” said Cochran.

Police hope that many people find the map helpful, not just for prospective home owners.

“It’s a great tool to help inform everybody and it’s an easy way of doing it. If you’ve got an address in mind and you click on this website, it’ll tell you whether or not it’s a place that’s had a lab or not so it makes it very simple,” said Cochran.