LAWRENCE - Police responded to an apartment break on Avon Street Thursday night and discovered $65,000 worth of heroin and cocaine in plain view in a second-floor bedroom.
Police were told by a neighbor that two men broke into 16 Avon St. Apt. 3 around 10:15 p.m. and ransacked the place before fleeing with a black bag.
"Whether they grabbed money or something else, who knows," said police Chief John Romero. "There could have been more there that was taken. They ripped the place apart."
"We're wondering what they got away with," he said.
Arrested near the apartment later that night was Jose Rodriguez, 34, of 109 Haverhill St.
Rodriguez is also believed to reside in the Avon Street apartment, which police said was used as a "stash pad" to cut and package drugs for distribution.
Rodriguez was charged with trafficking more than 200 grams of heroin and trafficking more than 200 grams of cocaine.
Police entered the apartment to find the front door kicked in. All drawers in the bedroom and kitchen were either open or had been left on the floor.
Inside a bedroom closet, detectives found six bags of cocaine weighing just over 563 grams, a 3.5 gram bag of crack cocaine, and ten bags of heroin weighing just over 210 grams.
There also discovered two bricks of heroin weighing a collective 410 grams.
Romero said the street value of the heroin is $40,000, while the cocaine and crack is worth $25,000.
Detectives also retrieved four digital scales, seven bottles of the cocaine cutting agent Inositol, a cocaine press, plastic cellophane wrappers and four grinders from the apartment.
Also in the apartment were several pictures of Rodriguez and a money order receipt with his name on it. Police later returned to the apartment and were able to arrest him on nearby Jackson Street.
