A 38-year-old Redmond, Wash., man was slumped over the wheel of a running car at a Stearns County stop sign with his foot on the brake when an officer knocked on the window on Nov. 4, according to the complaint.
The officer had been sent to the eastbound exit ramp at County Road 159 on a call about a vehicle stopped at the stop sign with its driver slumped over. When he knocked, the driver woke up and was asked to put the vehicle in park. He was identified as Michael Russell White.
The officer saw a blue tourniquet around White’s left arm, which White pulled off, according to the complaint. White held a piece of tinfoil with burnt residue in his right hand. An orange cap consistent with a hypodermic needle was on the floor by the driver’s seat. White told the officer he tried to inject a substance but it did not work this time. He admitted injecting a substance earlier in the night. A red zippered pouch on the passenger seat held white baggies with a crystal-like substance. A torch sat in the cupholder.
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During field sobriety tests the officer saw bloodshot, droopy eyes and tremors in White’s eyelids. White swayed back and forth and front to back. The officer believed White was going to fall back into the squad car. White was arrested for driving while impaired. A search of the vehicle turned up a substance that field-tested as heroin and weighed about one gram. Another substance field-tested as methamphetamine and weighed about 23 grams with the packaging.
White is charged in Stearns County District Court in a complaint filed Nov. 6. Third-degree drug possession of more than 10 grams of methamphetamine, a felony, carries up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine or both. Fifth-degree drug possession, also a felony, carries up to five years and a $10,000 fine or both. A misdemeanor DWI count for driving under the influence of a controlled substance carries up to 90 days and a $1,000 fine or both.
