A Safford police officer on patrol in the area of 1st Avenue and 9th Street Friday night observed a vehicle with a single headlight traveling eastbound on 11th Street. The car appeared to be driving down the middle of the street. The officer turned around and observed the vehicle make a left turn onto 1st Avenue. Once the turn was completed the driver suddenly swerved into the other lane without signaling. The officer observed the vehicle swerving within the lane before self-correcting. The vehicle also had no license plate lights.
The officer activated his emergency lights and pulled the vehicle over. The officer contacted the driver through the passenger side window and told him why he had stopped him. The driver, identified as Glen Brown, provided the officer with all the proper documentation. The officer asked Brown if he had any illegal items in the car and Brown said, “no.” The officer noticed that Brown’s arms and hands were shaking and his carotid artery in his neck was pulsing. Brown apparently seemed anxious and agitated. He was very snappy in his responses to simple questions, such as who owned the vehicle and where he was coming from.
The officer ran a query of Brown’s name and found that his license was suspended due to a previous DUI conviction. Another officer arrived and the two officers removed Brown from the car and advised him on his license suspension. Brown apparently told the officers that he knew they would find the suspension. Officers searched Brown but did not find any items of contraband. While searching the vehicle, authorities found a “tooter” straw in a Marlboro cigarette pack at the base of the driver’s side door. Another straw was found on the floorboard. Both straws had brown residue consistent with drug use. The officer then found a blue key chain canister tucked between the upper part of the driver seat cushion and the center console. The container had a baggie with white, crystal-like substance that appeared to be methamphetamine.
The officer walked back to the patrol car and placed Brown in handcuffs, advising him that he was under arrest. The officer asked Brown who the meth belonged to but he denied any knowledge of it. He then claimed that it must belong to his ex-wife. He told the officers that his ex-wife had been saying that she was “going to get him,” and she left it there to set him up. When asked who the car belonged to Brown said it was his ex-wife’s but it was his to use. Brown said that nobody else had been in the car that evening, but two days prior his ex-wife had been in the front seat smoking meth. Later Brown told police that he had gotten in the vehicle with his ex-wife shortly after she finished smoking meth and he likely got second hand smoke from her smoking meth.
Brown also had marijuana but had a medical marijuana card, which he showed to police. Some tin foil was also found in the car with burn marks. Inside the foil police located a partially burned pill with an ‘M’ stamped on it. The pill was later identified as Oxycodone. Police also found a red bandanna with a glass-bulbed pipe. Brown said that he had a prescription for Oxycodone and that he smoked it rather than swallow it. However, he insisted that the meth pipe was not his.
Brown was taken to the Safford police department where he submitted to a blood draw. The other officer stayed with the vehicle until it was towed from the scene. The vehicle was placed in the impound for thirty days. Brown was released from custody and charges are pending the lab results from the blood draw.
