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Police: Suspect kept heroin stash in pants
Rutland Herald | March 31, 2017
By ERIC FRANCIS
CORRESPONDENT
Kyle Darrell of Springfield appears Thursday in White River Junction criminal court after police said they arrested him with hundreds of bags of heroin in his pants. PHOTO BY ERIC FRANCIS
Kyle Darrell of Springfield appears Thursday in White River Junction criminal court after police said they arrested him with hundreds of bags of heroin in his pants. PHOTO BY ERIC FRANCIS
WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — Police say a Springfield man already facing a heroin trafficking charge in Massachusetts was busted again Wednesday with hundreds of bags of heroin stuffed in his pants.
Kyle Darrell, 25, pleaded not guilty Thursday in White River Junction criminal court to felony counts of heroin trafficking and heroin possession, the latter charge stemming from a separate arrest in Springfield earlier this month.
Darrell also pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor count of trespassing, He was returned to the Springfield jail for lack of $15,000 bail.
He was arrested early Wednesday evening after Springfield Police Officer Ryan Prince spotted him behind the Post Office on Main Street and believed it was suspicious that anyone was back there after business hours.
Prince said he drove around the building and found Darrell in the passenger seat of a parked car that had been driven there by Samuel Wiltanger, 22. Prince said Wiltanger eventually gave him permission to search his vehicle after turning over a pot pipe and small baggie of marijuana he had in a pocket.
The police affidavit said Prince was aware Kyle had been arrested in February for trafficking heroin in Massachusetts and earlier this month in Springfield for possessing heroin.
The officer said Darrell avoided eye contact and admitted to having “just some bags” of heroin.
Darrell handed him a small sandwich baggie containing a few heroin bags, Prince said, but during a pat-down search he found a large amount of cash in Darrell’s sweatshirt pockets and could hear what sounded like a plastic bag rustling in Darrell’s pants.
“I asked Kyle what else he had and asked him to remove it,” Prince wrote. “Kyle was hesitant at first and then removed a Cumberland Farms grocery bag containing suspected heroin from his pants.”
Prince reported finding 311 bags of heroin on Darrell, along with four Suboxone pills and $2,343 in cash.
According to the Springfield Republican newspaper in Massachusetts, Darrell and Brandon Heist, 19, also of Springfield, were charged with heroin trafficking Feb. 11 after they were stopped on Interstate 91 in Holyoke. Police said they found 800 bags of heroin.
Darrell was also arrested March 6, along with two other local men, in what was supposed to be a vacant apartment on Major Court in Springfield.
Police said the apartment reeked of marijuana and they found a bag containing “approximately 10 bundles of white glassine bags of heroin” in a cereal box.
Darrell, who is still on probation following a conviction for simple assault just under a year ago, could face up to 41 years in prison if convicted of the Vermont charges alone.
In court Thursday, defense attorney Robert Lees said Darrell realized he had a substance abuse problem and has enrolled in a program at the Turning Point Club in Springfield.
Now that he enroll in the substance abuse program our Liberal Judge in WRJ will let the guy go with a slap on the hand and probably buy him lunch to. from 41 years to out!
ReplyDeleteWonder how many lives he's contributed to destroying? Obviously not enough to enforce preventive and punitive measures. Only a matter of time before a noble man (or woman) arises and takes it upon themself to take out the garbage.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37172002
Hey, he's doing the best he can under the for-profit system. We could stop him by destroying the profit motive which drives the illegal drug trade. We do this by legalizing those substances and controlling their manufacture (no more fentanyl-related deaths), distribution (smuggling is no longer profitable), and sale (no tobacco-industry-like ad campaigns to create addicts; no additional profit to the merchants for increasing the volume of sales).
ReplyDeleteIt's all right to stop blindly following Nixon's tactics to neutralize anti-war protestors, hippies and civil rights activists-- which was why he created the War on Drugs in the first place.
So, as with addiction to alcohol, people will satisfy their cravings by legal purchase. We will not see a flood of new addicts. The families of the addicts will not be afraid that dealing with the problem relative might result in a SWAT raid. And parents will not have to worry that somebody is trying to make money by turning their school-age children into addicts.
Least anyone not see the obvious flaw in Chuck's logic, How does a heroin addict hold a job to legally "purchase" drugs? The answer is, no better than the legion of lazy, worthless drunks scamming disability that endlessly loiter at the U-Turning Point! Also, how well did "legal" bath salts work out for the community? Dozens of uninsured, violent, addicts burdening emergency services and forcing our hospital into bankruptcy. Please Chuck, go sell liberalism somewhere else.
ReplyDeleteSpot on
DeleteNawh, Chuck how are dem good ole boys suppose to make a livin if you legalize the stuff. Why my grandpappy used to make a tidy livin with his moonshine still til those libs went and legalized liquor. Dang shame makin it hard to turn a buck these days.
DeleteChuck, Chuck, Chuck! Most of the opioid deaths in America are from LEGAL, REGULATED DRUGS! That's how most addicts start. They wind up on heroin because it's cheaper and more powerful. Fentanyl is already legal and regulated; my mom was given some at the ER just last week. Are you suggesting that it be made "more legal" somehow, and that would solve the opioid crisis? Maybe if you could get it at the gas station with a six pack? Do us a favor, relive the 60's on your own time!
ReplyDeleteGoat Rustler-- it is in the interest of drug dealers to create more customers in order to make more money, just like the tobacco companies. As we do not want to have to deal with millions of lung cancer deaths and other tobacco-related morbidity/mortality issues, we try to damp the tobacco industries' ability to hook kids, but we do not mess with their adult advertising.
ReplyDeleteAddicts need to deal with their addiction. To have them pressured or cozened into activating or continuing their habit is not wise, but by making various substances illegal, we make them profitable for criminal enterprise.
So, we legalize everything. We control the purity, the distribution and the stores. We hire clerks who get a nice wage (if they get fired, they lose a good-paying job, so they're not going to be too tempted to pilfer the stock and sell it on the side) and managers who never have to worry about meeting sales quotas. Customers will be people who are either curious about the effects of marijuana, heroin, cocaine and trying it just once; people who do it recreationally (like the late actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman, killed by a fentanyl-laced product off the street, or the fictional character Sherlock Holmes) but have perfectly functional lives otherwise; or people with an addiction problem.
The latter group has a problem, but as with alcoholics, their families and our society will deal with it without encouraging a profit-driven entity to support their continued addiction.
As has been shown in Portugal, decriminalizing drugs does not lead to a rise in drug usage.
I know this sounds scary and appears to be contrary to common sense-- just as people once were unnerved by the idea that the sun doesn't go around the earth-- but considering how the War on Drugs was based on poor science and shrewd political manipulation, we really have to think seriously about continuing with a massively failed policy. We should be putting the billions spent on the DEA into both positive (mandatory residential treatment, accessible and affordable therapies, substance abuse education programs) and negative (jail time for users who, like drunk drivers, endanger the population repeatedly) programs.
We prevent the opioid deaths by addressing the for-profit criminality involved. But will we ever be brave enough to try it?
How about we all accept the fact that drugs are the Devil. Mutilating everything beautiful. We are powerless over this insanity! But God isn't. No man-made method is key, but wisdom is. Maybe this Earth needs more 1960's.
Delete" people who do it recreationally ... but have perfectly functional lives otherwise; or people with an addiction problem."
DeleteProblem is opioids are nearly impossible to do recreationally without becoming addicted and needing more and more to obtain the same high. Especially heroin. People become hooked very quickly, take more and more, and then OD. Legalization of these drugs is such a bad idea.
The rate for opioid addiction is actually pretty close to that for alcohol: 26% vs. 20%. Three-quarters of users are either one-time or occasional users.
DeleteIf it were legal, those who were sliding from recreation to addiction would be far more likely to receive intervention than they are now.
As for a return to the 60's to gain the necessary wisdom, "The path to the mountain of wisdom often goes through the valley of a rehab facility."
Apropos my comments about the politically-inspiredl creation of the War on Drugs, is this comment from a retired CIA operative who worked for the Company in that period:
ReplyDelete"As CIA director, in 1977 Bush sent his son Jeb to Venezuela to take over banking relationships between that nation and Colombia. George H.W. and his son Jeb were seminal in the fostering and creation of the drug cartels in Colombia and established the CIA connection that would burgeon under Reagan, but I am getting ahead of myself. Colombia was all about controlling the world’s cocaine."
To read the article he wrote, go to http://www.veteranstoday.com/2017/04/04/neo-the-nasty-truth-about-the-cia/
We have to face up to the responsibility of starting to think for ourselves on this very big problem. The government's approach, although perhaps now well-meant, is quite simply wrong.
If it comes from a plant it should be legal. Manipulating it thru chemistry should make that substance illegal. Concentrating it should be legal. Hence hemp, hash, opium, fermented fallen fruit, beer, morning glory seeds and such, cocaine leaves, coffee, mushrooms, cacti, tobacco should all be legal. The planet Earth put it here.
ReplyDeleteWe are as thoroughly appalled by drug abuse as were the members of the Anti-Saloon League and the Women's Christian Temperance Movement were by alcoholism. Both they and we have reason to be appalled-- abuse of alcohol and other substances is scary to us and damaging to those whose lives are malformed by it.
ReplyDeleteBut doing what the ASL and WCTU wanted-- criminalization-- was not the right answer. As a result, the only other solution is being used: penalizing users whose actions under the influence violate the rights of others, hoping that the punishment sends a message to the addict that maybe he's got a problem he should address, and providing chances for therapeutic intervention. We are not afraid of alcohol per se; we tolerate its sale and use because we know that most (80%) users don't have a problem.
We do, unfortunately, tolerate its marketing, which tends to perpetuate the problems of alcohol addiction.
I think we should take that step toward a more mature attitude toward substance abuse and say, "Prohibition doesn't work. Let's decriminalize it, have it available legally through tightly-controlled production, distribution and marketing (no advertising whatsoever), and spend the money that used to go for the raids and prisons go for therapeutic programs for those whose abuse puts them in trouble with the law."
It's a big step, but we need grownups to take them.
Now Chuck, we surely showed them Germans that we cud stand up to them by adoptin Prohibition -- we showed them German Brewers what we were made of, and broke up them foreigner watering holes that caused so much trouble fer the American Way. Look at all the prosperity and businesses that we created in Chicago just like magic by adoptin Prohibition. And them boys knew how to clean up competitive turf issues nice and quick St. Valentine style. And look at what improvements we have made through chemistry, why them Chinese just puffed on that raw opium. It wasn't strong enough to get a real hit or nothing, they still went out and built our railroads, but with our modern approach why we turned it into heroin and it really packs a punch now. And its American ingenuity, why that heroin sure solved the morphine addiction problem we had. None of that would have been possible if we had left it legal, why where's the profit in that?
ReplyDelete