| GUN TOTING - A Sissonville man was found by TSA with two guns in his backpack on Thanksgiving Day in Charleston.
Two loaded handguns, one with 13 bullets and one with seven bullets, were found at the security checkpoint.
The guns were confiscated and the man was detained and questioned before being cited on weapons charges.
Last year, Yeager Airport's TSA found six handguns at the security checkpoint. The recent find means last year's numbers have already been surpassed, TSA officials say.
According to a release from TSA, a typical first offense for carrying a handgun into a security checkpoint is a $4,100 fine.
GUNS, DRUGS, KIDS - Two Elkins women are charged with possession and child neglect after police allegedly found drugs, guns and cash during a welfare check.
On Nov. 30, officers with the Elkins Police Department along with troopers from the West Virginia State Police responded to a complaint of a juvenile screaming for “almost 2 hours” at a residence on Guy Street in Elkins, according to a criminal complaint.
When officers and troopers arrived, they met with Shaundra Thompson, 29, of Elkins, who allowed them to enter the home for a welfare check, officers said.
In the living room, officers saw a firearm lying on top of the couch, and when they went to retrieve the weapon, officers also saw that there were several clear plastic baggies, a set of scales, a notebook which appeared to be a drug ledger and drug paraphernalia, according to the complaint.
Officers then detained Thompson so that a search could be performed, and when Thompson was asked to empty her pockets, she removed a pink bag containing what Thompson said was “something I shouldnât have,” and when officers opened it, there was a white crystal-like substance inside, officers said.
After officers placed Thompson in handcuffs and called child protective services to take a child from the home, a woman, identified as Melissa Slayton, 35, of Elkins, arrived at the residence, according to the complaint.
Officers asked Slayton if she lived at the house, and she said she did, as well as stating she was aware of the child being around the “items observed by officers when they entered,” and she said, “I only do meth when [he] is asleep,” officers said.
Slayton told officers she had her own bag of methamphetamine in a bedroom upstairs, and officers found the bag Slayton described in a closet in the bedroom, according to the complaint.
Inside the bag were several individual packages of methamphetamine, U.S. currency, several empty bags, a glass container with bags of methamphetamine inside, as well as a set of digital scales, officers said. Slayton was placed in custody and officers later returned to the home to execute a search warrant, according to the complaint.
When officers returned to the residence, they found several bags, digital scales and other drug paraphernalia throughout one of the bedrooms, as well as a lock box which officers said contained several denominations of U.S. currency, plastic bags, another set of digital scales, two bags with a white crystal-like substance, fours bags of a green leafy substance, four bags containing a powdery substance of presumed heroin, many bags containing pills, a drug ledger and “money receipt.”
During the search, one officer alerted others that he had found a loaded firearm in one of the closets; officers also searched the room where the child resided and found multiple empty plastic bags inside, according to the complaint.
Throughout the house, officers found empty plastic bags, as well as several knives, packs of cigarettes, glass smoking devices, a white crystal-like residue on the sofa, power tools, saws, chainsaws and car batteries, officers said.
The crystal-like substance weighted 391 grams when officers weighed it, and the U.S. currency found amounted to more than $2,500, according to the complaint.
Slayton and Thompson are both charged with possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance and child neglect creating risk of injury. they are both being held in Tygart Valley Regional Jail on $50,000 bond each. |
