Lawrence Police, looking for drugs and child pornography, are scrutinizing the contents of computer hard drives they seized Thursday in an apartment raid in the 2500 block of Redbud Lane.

The seized items include four computer towers, computer monitors, suspected drug paraphernalia, marijuana and a jar of mercury, said Sgt. Dan Ward, a Lawrence Police spokesman.

The apartment’s 31-year-old resident, Jeff Myer, said after the raid that the incident was being blown out of proportion. He admits smoking marijuana for chronic pain and downloading large caches of pornography files using his computer’s broadband connection.

Myer, whose apartment is crammed with television screens, computer monitors and decorations he salvaged from the trash, said some of what he downloaded might not have official disclaimers saying the models were older than 18. But he said he didn’t think anything on his computer would qualify as child pornography.

“Apparently some of the porn must be questionable,” he said.

Myer said police broke in and pulled him out of bed naked when they served the search warrant about 11:30 a.m. After searching the apartment, they took him to the Police Department, read him his rights and questioned him before driving him home and releasing him, he said.

Ward said it would have been premature to make an arrest in the case Thursday.

Jeff Myer 31, says he doesn't understand why police raided his Lawrence apartment. Armed with a search warrant and looking for drugs and child pornography, police searched Myer's apartment Thursday. Myer admits to downloading porn from the Internet -- though not child pornography -- and says he smokes marijuana for chronic pain.

“It is an ongoing investigation, and it will take time to examine all the computers we have and determine whether or not child pornography does exist,” he said.

He said police eventually would send a report to the District Attorney’s Office.

Ward said police began investigating activities in the apartment on Wednesday after someone, whom he declined to identify, contacted the department and said there were drugs and child pornography inside. Police investigated further and applied for a search warrant.

Myer, who grew up in Eudora and has lived on Redbud Lane since April, said he was unemployed and trying to get Social Security disability benefits. He said he had been told he had bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness.

6News video: Police investigate apartment for child pornography and drugs (09-23-04)

He described himself as a designer and stylist and said he found the jar of mercury recently while looking through the trash near his apartment. He said he wanted to use it in an art project if he could find someone to pressurize it and put it between glass.