A man’s behavior drew the attention of a clerk in a local convenience store Monday evening.
The clerk’s concerns led police officers to the store and resulted in several drug charges against the man.
Christopher Scott Dishman, 24, 125 School House Road, Elizabethton, was arrested Monday and charged with Schedule II drug violations, Schedule IV drug violations, simple possession/casual exchange, possession of unlawful drug paraphernalia, tampering with evidence and resisting stop arrest.
At 6:42 p.m. Monday, Elizabethton Police Department Patrol Officer Justin Pearce responded to the Quick Stop Gas Station after a call from a clerk about a suspicious customer “in a dirty T-shirt,” later identified as Dishman. The clerk told police the customer had gone into the men’s restroom for around 30 minutes. He then went outside the store near the trash cans and then came back into the store and went into the restroom again.
Pearce wrote in the arrest report he made contact with Dishman as he was leaving the restroom. He said he told Dishman about the call and asked to search him, which Dishman consented to.
Pearce reported that during the search he found a silver pill fob in Dishman’s pants pocket that contained 13 1-milligram alprazolam pills, generic for Zanax and a syringe loaded with clear liquid under Dishman’s hat.
Pearce said he went to investigate the restroom and when he returned he noticed Dishman was clenching his left hand.
“I asked Dishman what he had in his hand and he ignored me,” Pearce wrote. “I asked again and he continued to ignore me, so I grabbed his left wrist and told him to open his hand. He still ignored me and began to pull away.”
Pearce wrote that he and EPD Sgt. Curtis Bullock placed Dishman on the ground, where he then opened his hand. Pearce wrote in the report that the pills that were in the pill fob “fell out of his hand and onto the ground.”
Dishman was then arrested and transported to the Carter County jail. While at the jail for booking, EPD officers were called back to the convenience store where they were told that additional items were located at the trash cans outside the building.
Bullock reported recovering a purple cloth bag containing a wallet with Dishman’s ID card, prescription pill bottles containing several pills, a sandwich bag containing a green leafy substances, two syringes, a spoon with burn marks on the bottom and two empty cellophane wrappers with white powdery residue inside.
The green leafy substance, which Bullock said was believed to be marijuana, weighed 3.9 grams with the bag. He also reported finding 25 7.5-milligram acetaminophen and Oxycdone pills; four 1-milligram alprazolam pills, one 10-milligram Oxycodone and 33 .5-milligram alprazolam pills.
Bullock also reported that while he was at the Carter County jail on an unrelated case, he was told by corrections officers that they heard Dishman on the telephone telling someone ”to go back to the Quick Stop and get the ‘red bag’ that he had left behind a trash can at the back of the building.”
Dishman is scheduled to appear in General Sessions Court on Aug. 19.