Report: Man calmly rakes marijuana into a pile, puts it in his mouth, swallows

NICEVILLE – Lawmen have arrested a man after he was seen by a police officer sitting in a car eating marijuana.

The incident occurred at a Kelly Road apartment complex, according to a Niceville Police Department arrest report. The man, 24-year-old John Christopher McCauley of Niceville, was spotted by an officer walking along a privacy fence that led to the back yard of a manager’s residence at Wildwood Apartments. The officer followed McCauley, and as he rounded a corner he saw McCauley get into the passenger side of a car behind the house. The officer parked behind the car.

The officer wrote in the report, “I approached the vehicle and noted the defendant breaking up a green leafy substance that with my training and experience suspected to be marijuana. The defendant was placing the suspected marijuana onto a cardboard box which was sitting on his lap. I further noted a multicolored blue/yellow marijuana bong sitting in the driver seat.”

The officer further wrote, “I knocked on the passenger window and the defendant looked me directly in the eye, then turned his attention back to breaking the suspected marijuana. I knocked a second time and the defendant again looked directly at me. As he did, I shined my flashlight onto my badge so the defendant could see that I was a police officer. The defendant for the third time turned his attention back to breaking the suspected marijuana. Once it was broken up, the defendant calmly piled it into a neat pile, raked it into his hand and calmly placed it into his mouth and swallowed it.”

The officer opened the door and McCauley tried to get away by squeezing between the officer and the passenger door, striking the officer in the abdomen. The officer took him to the ground and detained him.

Lawmen also found a zipper-top plastic bag of marijuana in a door compartment.

MCCauley was charged with tampering or destroying evidence, resisting arrest without violence, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. His plea date is Dec. 23.