Open Intoxicant Check Results in Foot Chase and Methamphetamine Charges
For police officers, investigating one thing often leads to other things. Which is why it probably didn’t come as too much of a surprise when Port Huron Officers stopped a man for what they thought was an open intoxicant. Only to discover it was an active one-pot meth lab being carried down the street.
The incident happened at close to 2 am on Sunday morning in Port Huron. An officer noticed a man in the parking lot of a corner business with what appeared to be a bottle of alcohol. The officer approached the man and asked to see what he was carrying, and the man handed the bottle over.
Unaware of it’s contents, the officer opened it and took a sniff, filling his lungs with toxic chemicals. The man immediately took off running, and the officer pursued him on foot. The man, a 23-year-old, was finally caught some distance away on Gillette street, where he was arrested.
Other departments had become involved in the chase, one of which was the Michigan State Police. Somehow, during the course of the pursuit, an MSP patrol car hit a natural gas meter on the side of a house. The Port Huron Fire Department checked it out, before handing the repair work off to workers from SEMCO Energy.
The man was transported to the St. Clair County Jail where he is being held until his arraignment. He has been charged with operating and maintaining a methamphetamine lab, second offense, and might also face charges for possession of methamphetamine.
The Port Huron Police officer who first stopped him and inhaled the toxic meth fumes from the cooking bottle, was taken to McLaren Port Huron Hospital. There he received treated for the inhalation of chemical fumes, and was released.
Under Michigan law, operating and maintaining a methamphetamine lab is a felony punishable by up to ten years in prison and fines of up to $100,000.