BRIGHTON, Colo. — A task force led by DEA Agents conducted a number raids Thursday on a large number of suspected illegal marijuana grows in the Denver Metro.
Two of them took place in Sean Lykins neighborhood in Brighton.
Lykins said, “I just heard a loud speaker telling the house next door to me the people to come out and then I saw a bunch of SWAT officers at the door.”
Surveillance video captured DEA agents arriving and raiding a home said to be illegally growing marijuana.
Lykins and his family was leaving their home when they were frightened by the sound of fleas grenades.
“Well it was quite the way to start off the day with trying to get my kids off to school and my kids are seeing flash bang grenades going off,” he said.
Lykins did not suspect the neighbors were illegally growing pot.
Spotting grow houses can be tricky. Law Enforcement officer say windows are sometimes covered up.
Some have an unusual number of air conditioning units.
Others may have a roof where snow melts too quickly due to heat needed for the plants.
Brighton Police Public Information Officer John Bradley said, “There are absolutely no hard and fast guidelines we say you might look for would only be indicators but they can also be explained by perfectly legal and legitimate activity.”
This day, hundreds of plants were confiscated from what are described as large scale black market operations which means the weed more than likely was headed out of state.
Back in Lykins’ neighborhood there were very few signs of the chaos that broke out earlier in the day.
The Lykins family is hoping it stays this way.
We are told more than 30 homes were raided mostly in Brighton and Commerce City.
No arrests were made but FOX31 is told those are coming.