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Vehicle accident leads to drug bust

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When McKinley County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Robert Turney arrived at the scene of an accident at Twin Buttes Road, it was to assist deputies already investigating the non-injury crash March 26.

He saw that the other deputies were safely away from the road speaking with the driver, 38-year-old Tyrannus White, when he decided to scour the area for other possible victims. But, he was instead distracted by one set of “distinct tennis shoe” tracks that led around the vehicle and back towards the road, as noted in his report.

“I observed in plain view within the vehicle several small marijuana cigarette parts, two orange colored rolling paper packs, a small digital scale, an ignition interlock device, a small aluminum foil drug smoking pipe, and numerous small green leafy stems and parts consistent with the marijuana,” Turney noted.

Turney next turned his attention on White. He noticed that he was wearing baggy and bulky clothing.

“I suspected further criminal activity afoot,” Turney wrote.

He then asked for White’s permission to “search his person,” which the suspect agreed to.

As he felt inside of his lower right pants pocket, he found a a plastic baggie that contained a “white glass-like substance.” White freely admitted that the substance was methamphetamine.

Turney immediately handcuffed White, arresting him for possession of meth.

A further search turned up a larger plastic bag that contained an hodgepodge of syringes, hundreds of small, plastic baggies, and a small amount of what appeared to be marijuana.

“The driver contacted me before we left and stated that he had been ‘working with’ two narcotics agents, the drugs were not his, and he wanted to make a deal to take ‘two’ people ‘down,’” the report states.

Turney followed up on White’s comments about being an informant, but narcotics agents rebuffed these claims.

White was booked for possession of methamphetamine, trafficking methamphetamine, and possession of marijuana. He was still in custody at the McKinley County Adult Detention Center as of March 30. He’s being held on a $5,000 cash only bond. He has a preliminary examination hearing set for April 5 at 1:30 pm in Magistrate Judge Kenneth Howard’s chambers.

By Babette Herrmann

Sun Editor