A DeLand police sergeant was dispatched to a drinking establishment early in July regarding a fight and somebody getting cut.
While he was asking questions of a man, the sergeant saw a 44-year-old homeless woman he was familiar with.
She “was holding a glass pipe in her hand” and trying to light something with a lighter.
The sergeant made his presence known to her and told her “she needed to get out of the area.”
Nice of him to give her a break, huh? And yet, some people can’t take a friendly hint!
Glass-Pipe Gal walked behind the lawman, “placed a white substance inside of the pipe and started lighting it with her lighter.”
Wow! Was this woman asking to be arrested? Maybe because she’d like to spend the night out of the elements, with some decent food to eat?
Another DeLand police officer arrived, and the sergeant, who’d been Mr. Nice Guy, had apparently had enough, and he let the newly arriving officer know he should handcuff the woman.
Glass-Pipe Gal “started pulling away and tensing her arms so she could not be placed in handcuffs … [She] also placed the glass pipe in her hand and closed her fist holding the pipe tight.”
The two lawmen forced the pipe out of the gal’s hand, and walked her over to a police car.
So these peace officers were offering Glass-Pipe Gal a chauffeured ride to her clean, pleasant accommodations for the night. Was she grateful? No!
Glass-Pipe Gal declined to get in the police car. Finally, the officers pulled her into the cruiser.
A test conducted on Glass-Pipe Gal’s pipe was “presumptive positive for cocaine.”
She was taken to the Volusia County Branch Jail, charged with possession/use of narcotic paraphernalia and resisting, obstructing or disobeying an order from a law-enforcement officer.
I hope her evening was nice and uneventful.
— By Keith Allen, based on local police-agency reports.
