‘One-stop shop for badness’ at illegal Oakland casino, police say

Inside an illicit East Oakland casino in the 6600 block of Bancroft Avenue, police said they arrested 20 people on a variety of charges Wednesday. Inside an illicit East Oakland casino in the 6600 block of Bancroft Avenue, police said they arrested 20 people on a variety of charges Wednesday. Photo: Alameda County Sheriff’s Office / Alameda County Sheriff’s Office Photo: Alameda County Sheriff’s Office / Alameda County Sheriff’s Office Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close ‘One-stop shop for badness’ at illegal Oakland casino, police say 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

There were feces on the floor, methamphetamine scattered on the tables, jumbled electrical wires lining the walls, guns out in the open and a 5-year-old child somewhere in the mix, police said.

It was a scene of squalor Wednesday inside a large East Oakland building converted to an illegal and makeshift underground casino in the 6600 block of Bancroft Avenue, said Sgt. Ray Kelly, a spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office.

With the backing of the department’s SWAT team, investigators, who had been probing the space for months, burst inside to execute a search warrant around 4 a.m., Kelly said.

Inside, police arrested 20 of the 28 people they found for a variety of mostly misdemeanors — including drug possession and probation violations — Kelly said, and the 5-year-old child was placed in the care of protective services.

“It really was kind of a one-stop shop for badness,” Kelly said.

Hours after the raid, the building, large enough to contain three separate addresses, was red-tagged by Oakland inspectors who saw the conditions, Kelly said. There were makeshift beds and blankets tucked in “different nooks and crannies of the building,” Kelly said, evidence of people not only stopping by for an illegal round of roulette, but also of others who called the place home.

It’s unusual for inspectors in Oakland to condemn a building so soon after laying eyes on it, preferring first to see what else might be done, barring severe and dangerous conditions like these that may leave no other options.

“You’d be safer sleeping outdoors than you would in this building,” Kelly said.

Following the Oakland fire that killed 36 artists and their friends in the now-infamous Ghost Ship building in early December, Kelly said that investigators have since been a “little hyper-sensitive, a little more vigilant when we go into buildings like this.”

“Where once we may not have been as aware of things like this, we are now, and so in this case, this could have been a recipe for disaster,” Kelly said.

Michael Bodley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mbodley@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @michael_bodley