With one in five small-drug violations following traffic stops and a crackdown on drugs by Athens County law enforcement, driving with drugs may be an easy way to get caught.
About 20 percent of drug-related misdemeanor violations in Athens County from May 2007 to May 2012 occurred after a traffic stop, according to data from the Athens County Municipal Court.
Athens Police Chief Tom Pyle said he is surprised that number is not higher.
“It’s rare that we find someone in the act as the reason for the violation,” Pyle said. “Typically, (drug offenders) do something else illegal that draws attention to themselves.”
The statistic was determined by finding incidents in which a person was charged with both a traffic violation and a drug offense on the same day in Athens County Municipal Court.
Passenger violations could not be connected to the traffic violation and could not be included in the statistic. In addition, felonies are processed through a different court and were not included in the data.
With these two factors, the true correlation between traffic stops and drug violations could be much higher.
The most common misdemeanor of drug-related offenses include possession of drugs, possession of paraphernalia, drug abuse and trafficking.
Records also show that nearly half of the incidents involved violators who were 25 or younger, but Pyle said he believes that is a reflection of the large student population.
“If you consider that 17,000 of the 24,000 people in Athens are under 25, then it makes sense,” Pyle said. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that we’re focusing on that age group.”
Athens County Sheriff Pat Kelly said the high number of incidents involving young people does not surprise him, and that it’s probably a result of people age 18 to 25 using and transporting more drugs than older age groups.
A law enforcement officer can only pull a car over after seeing the vehicle’s driver breaking the law, Pyle said.
Officers are not allowed to pull a vehicle over for simply looking suspicious, Pyle said.
“That’s considered profiling,” he said. “We have to have probable cause.”
Once a car is pulled over, numerous indicators could alert an officer to additional illegal activity, such as odor, visible evidence or signs of impairment from the people in the car, he said.
If an officer is suspicious of illegal drug activity, the Athens City Police Department has a K9 team that can be called in to sniff the car.
“If the dog alerts to the car, that’s the probable cause they need to search the vehicle,” Pyle said.
If an officer or deputy seizes evidence in the field, he or she takes it to the department’s evidence room for documentation and destruction.
Items are carefully cataloged and reported, said Detective Brice Fick of the Athens County Sheriff’s Office, who supervises the office’s evidence room. The room is equipped with lockers and Fick has the only key, he said.
Although deputies find things other than narcotics when searching vehicles, like illegal weapons and stolen property, Kelly said that drugs are by far the most common things found.
Kelly said he has been working diligently to combat the drug culture in Athens County.
“We hear people from out of the county make comments saying, ‘don’t try to go through Athens County, they’re watching for drugs in that county,’” Kelly said.
ls114509@ohiou.edu
