Thursday, February 19, 2015
Officers Locate Meth Lab While Confronting Intoxicated Driver
Police officers dispatched to investigate a possible drunk driver last week seized a meth lab from the vehicle and arrested all three of the occupants.
Officers with the Lawrenceburg Police Department were dispatched Friday on a report of a drunk driver at Busy Bee Market on Buffalo Road. While they were en route, they indicate that the driver left the store.
A City of Lawrenceburg employee was following the vehicle and was able to provide information via Lawrence Central Dispatch regarding the driver’s whereabouts.
The reporting officer indicates that he made visual contact with the car while traveling First Avenue. He said the driver accelerated rapidly, crossing in front of his patrol car.
The officer activated his emergency equipment and pursued the vehicle to stop the driver for reckless driving. The driver turned into the driveway of a Third Street home and the officer made contact with driver Christopher Buchanon Rochelle, age 35, of 307 West Willow Street, Columbia. The officer reports that he noticed a strong odor of alcohol about his person.
Rochelle told officers that he had consumed a single beer and taken some medication earlier but that he “was fine.” Field sobriety tests were administered and he failed to perform satisfactorily. He was subsequently arrested on charges of driving under the influence of an intoxicant.
A search was conducted of the vehicle during which officers report finding plastic baggies strewn throughout the car. Also found were empty beer and whiskey bottles, a plastic bottle with a coffee filter and liquid inside, a straw bearing a white powdery residue, and a squeeze bottle containing a yellow liquid.
While searching the trunk officers opened a blue tub that contained men’s clothing. The officer noticed that a coat inside was “too heavy” and checked it. He reports that rubber tubing and coffee filters were concealed in one pocket.
He found a two-liter plastic bottle concealed between the outer shell and lining that contained “several chemicals.” He said this is known as a “one pot meth lab.” The bottle was believed to contain lithium, ammonia nitrate, and some type of accelerant, possibly Coleman fuel.
At that point passengers Felecia Dawn Fouracres, age 27, of 205 Old Florence Pulaski Road, Leoma and Nicky Joe Johns, age 34, of 809 Third Street, Lawrenceburg were arrested, as well.
The trio was transported to the Lawrence County Detention Center where all three were booked under charges of promotion of the manufacture meth and initiation of a process to manufacture meth. Rochelle was additionally charged with DUI, violation of the implied consent law, vandalism, reckless driving, and driving on a revoked driver’s license.
All three are scheduled to appear in General Sessions Court on March 6, 2015.
