GREYHOUND GUARDS SOMETIMES LET DRUG OFFENDERS GO

Man Going To Bonnaroo Says Bus Company Let Other Concert-Goers Carrying Pot
Travel

NASHVILLE - Some Greyhound Bus Lines security guards here say they don't
always turn people caught with drugs over to the police.

Security officer Dustin Doyal told the local magistrate, in the trial of a
19-year-old accused of having psychedelic mushrooms at the bus station,
that sometimes they just let people go if they are only carrying a small
amount of drugs.

Another security officer at the Nashville bus station said the guards flush
the drugs down the toilet, and let passengers continue traveling on their
routes. A security guard records what is disposed of in a logbook.

The company, however, say people caught with drugs will always be turned
over to police, no matter the amount confiscated.

The apparent discrepancy between company policy and actual practice came to
light after security guards accused Samuel Martin Brown of Green Bay, Wis.,
of carrying five plastic bags with a total of 19.1 grams of mushrooms while
traveling to the Bonnaroo festival.

Brown was nabbed as part of random screenings that the guards conduct
routinely, and arrested by Nashville police for felony drug possession.

Both Brown and Doyal, a security guard with Nashville-based Alert Security
& Patrol, told a judge that others with smaller amounts of marijuana were
let go without charges.

Security guards are supposed to contact law enforcement after any screening
that reveals an illegal item, no matter the quantity, said Kim Plaskett, a
spokeswoman for Greyhound Bus Lines.

''We do our best to ensure that our security procedures are done according
to the way we establish them,'' she said. ''If we are notified to the
contrary, we will look into it and determine what actions need to be done
at that time.''

Brown said in night court Thursday that he was tricked into turning over
the drugs.

''I was completely honest,'' Brown said. ''They asked if we had any drugs,
and they said they would throw them out, not prosecute, and let us go.''

Doyal told the court that the guards call police when they find enough
drugs to warrant a felony charge.