DRUG DEALER CLAIMS SERIES OF BAD LUCK

I think a man that Officer Terence Garrison ran into the other night was
right when he told the officer, "Sometimes I just don't think I'm lucky."
Well, that might just be an understatement, because if the things that were
happening to him were luck related, he might just be the world's unluckiest
man.

Garrison's contact with Lucky began when he saw a car parked in front of a
house that was known to the officer as being one of frequent drug activity;
a "dope house," if you will.

A quick check of the car's license plate showed that the car had no
insurance, so as it started to drive away, Garrison stopped it. He found
Lucky to be the passenger and recognized the driver as being one of the
local drug dealers.

The driver wasted no time telling Garrison the car belonged to Lucky and
that he was just driving him to the store. Lucky couldn't drive himself to
the store because his license had been revoked.

Lucky acted surprised when he was questioned about not having any insurance
and replied, "Daddy was supposed to have taken care of that."

Garrison didn't fall for that excuse, but may have if Lucky hadn't been 35
years old. I guess he figured Lucky was old enough to take care of his own
insurance.

About now, Garrison noticed that Lucky was talking kinda funny; like there
was something foreign in his mouth. Knowing that people frequently try to
hide drugs in their mouth when the police are around and since these guys
had just left a drug house, and that there was a known drug dealer driving
Lucky to the store, it didn't take a mathematician to put two and two
together and figure out why our man was talking funny.

"It's just a LifeSaver," he said, when asked what was in his mouth. But he
refused to show the officer the candy, and when Garrison finally got him to
open his mouth, he could see what he identified as being crack cocaine.
Crack and LifeSavers just don't look the same, and not too often do you see
crack in a small clear plastic baggie.

Before the officer could get it out, though, Lucky managed to swallow the
package, and was then placed under arrest. As is usual procedure when some
dope swallows some dope, he was taken to the hospital.

Now Lucky became concerned about the turn of events and asked Garrison if
this arrest would hurt him when he went to court on other charges "next week."

He went on to tell the officer that a while back, he had been mistakenly
arrested while visiting a friend. Lucky said that he and his wife had
gotten into a fight, so he left home and went to "visit a friend" at "a
dope house."

He continued with his story, saying that he "got drunk and was laid up on a
mattress on the floor" when the police came into the house with a search
warrant. All the commotion apparently scared him so badly, that he jumped
up from the mattress and grabbed a pair of pants and put them on.

It was just Lucky's luck that the pants he grabbed weren't his. And
wouldn't you know it, they just happened to have some crack cocaine in the
pockets.

And wouldn't you know it, too, that those narrow-minded police officers
didn't believe the pants he was wearing weren't his and charged him with
possessing the drugs.

You know, I think Lucky was right. He ain't very lucky after all.

Y'all be careful out there.

Ron Stowe is a captain with the High Point Police Department.