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Running from the police just makes things worse in most cases

by | Jun 11, 2018 | Criminal Defense

When a confidential police informant said that a certain State College man was selling drugs from his residence on Carnegie Drive, the police still had work to do to make their case against him. Tipsters and police informants don’t always provide accurate information and sometimes may be motivated by bias, self-interest or other questionable factors.

For some reason, the police did not obtain a warrant to search the residence. Instead, officers initiated a traffic stop after the man left his home. Based on the report in the Centre Daily Times, it is unclear what prompted that traffic stop. The man continued on for three or four blocks before stopping and asking an officer what he had been stopped for.

That’s when he apparently ran from the police. He only made it about a block before he was apprehended.

Based on the Times piece, it does not appear the man had any drugs in his car. Were the police unable to obtain a warrant to search his home? If so, it’s entirely possible that the man could have walked away from that traffic stop with no drug charges — if he hadn’t run.

Running from the police is considered suspicious. The police may have pointed to his flight when justifying a search of his home.

In the residence, police say they found 45.9 grams of marijuana along with 26.2 grams of cocaine and drug paraphernalia. At a later interview he admitted to having active warrants in other jurisdictions.

He has been charged with four felony counts of drug possession, four misdemeanor counts of drug possession, a felony charge of flight to avoid apprehension, a misdemeanor charge of attempting to elude an officer and a summary charge of driving on a suspended license. His bail was set at $50,000. He was unable to post it.

Whenever we encounter police, we have choices to make. The instinct of the moment may urge us to flee, but attempting to elude law enforcement officers rarely turns out well. In this case, it may have led to charges that could have been avoided.

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