If you’re going to set up a mobile meth lab, putting it in a Walmart parking lot might seem like a great way to reach some of your intended clientele. Trust us, though, you’ll want to go the Walter White route and take that business out into the wilderness, where — y’know — the cops can’t give you a ticket.
Today’s little Breaking Bad blooper reel nominee comes from Lebanon, Tennessee, where employees of a local Walmart called police to respond to a shoplifting call at the Supercenter. Employees say they saw a man and a woman take cold compresses and batteries out of the Walmart without paying for them, according to the Lebanon Democrat .
The ingredients in batteries and cold compresses, according to one police officer, are often used in the manufacture of meth. The shoplifting couple tried to leave in a red Saturn, but Walmart employees held them there. The woman then got into another vehicle and left, but the man was held for a misdemeanor shoplifting citation. He then left on foot.
Knowing that the materials being shoplifted could be used to make meth, the police called in a K9 unit, and the dogs sniffed out the trunk of the shoplifters’ car.
Upon opening it, they found what is called a “shake-and-bake” meth lab. Shake-and-bake meth operations allow meth manufacturers to produce meth with fewer prohibited chemicals.
(Remember how Breaking Bad’s Walter White and Jesse Pinkman were always going on about where they were going to get more Pseudo? That’s pseudoephedrine that they’re talking about, and a shake-and-bake meth lab lets you make meth with less of that. #TheMoreYouKnow)
Shake-and-bake meth labs are also much smaller, allowing manufacturers to make meth in the trunk or back seat of a car. That’s exactly what officers found when they searched the car the two shoplifters left at Walmart. The lab was active, according to officers on the scene, and materials from the lab tested positive for meth.
Of course, since they couldn’t hold either the man or woman on a shoplifting charge before discovering the meth lab, police now have to search for them. They have some leads, including a pill bottle with the male suspect’s name on it.
In retrospect, the criminals could have screwed up even worse in trying to keep their meth lab running. They could, for instance, have been busted while wearing a Pollos Hermanos t-shirt .
[Lead image via Gawker .]