| Photo: Legal Juice |
Huntington Police say a Lufkin, Texas man, worried about getting in trouble for the marijuana joint he was holding, swallowed the evidence after telling an officer what he was about to do.
A police officer conducted a traffic stop early Wednesday morning after a vehicle ran a stop sign, according to Chief Steven Sifford. The officer reported that he handcuffed the driver and one of the passengers — which seems a little unusual for running a stop sign — and then approached the third passenger, Marty Ray Evans, 45, reports Jeff Awtrey at KTRE.
He said Evans quickly put his left hand behind his back, concealing what he was holding. Fearing that Evans had a weapon, the officer pulled his gun and asked him what he had, according to the arrest report.
Evans then tried to put the joint in his pocket, according to the report, so the officer holstered his gun and asked him what he was trying to put away.
“Nothing now,” the report quotes Evans as saying. “Now I’m going to swallow it!”
The officer unsuccessfully tried to stop Evans from swallowing the joint, grabbing the man and pulling his left hand behind his back, but saw the man’s hand was now empty.
“Too late; I already swallowed it,” Evans said, according to the report.
The officer asked Evans what he swallowed and Evans replied, “A joint,” the report states.
Evans was then told if he had just handed over the joint when asked, he would only have been charged with a Class C misdemeanor. Instead, he is now charged with tampering with evidence — a felony.
The officer thanked the other two occupants of the vehicle for cooperating and released them.
