MANCHESTER, N.H. (
MyFoxBoston.com) -- A New Hampshire man is in jail on charges he was making a powerful hallucinogenic drug in an apartment with young children inside.
Manchester Police arrested Derek Russell Monday after they said they found a large quantity of DMT, or dimethyltryptamine, in jars in an apartment on Lake Avenue.
Investigators said EMTs were responding to a medical call in the apartment building when they noticed the suspicious containers of brown liquid.
"I couldn't even expect this right across the street from my house," neighbor Marcus Tardiff told FOX25.
20 residents in the nine unit building were evacuated and kept from their homes for nearly seven hours while the investigation was underway.
DEA agents and officers in hazmat suits assisted in the arrest and dismantling of the DMT, which they said is highly flammable and could have exploded.
Police said Russell was staying with a woman who rents the apartment, and her three young children.
"I couldn't even imagine my child being in a situation, in danger like that," another neighbor said.
Officers said the children and mother were taken to the hospital to be checked for contamination.
Russell was arrested on multiple charges and will be arraigned Tuesday.
