Suspicious vehicle report results in syringe charge

JACKSON TWP. — Police reported finding 198 syringes and a man who was dozing off in a “suspicious vehicle” on Lanam Ridge Road.

The vehicle was reported in the 3400 block of Lanam Ridge on April 19. Brown County Sheriff’s Deputy William Pool found a dark SUV backed into a small lane with the engine running. The driver appeared to be slumped over, sleeping in the driver’s seat, he wrote in his report. He looked in all the windows before tapping on the window to wake the driver. He reported seeing the floorboards “littered” with needle caps and small bags of cotton balls.

The driver asked what was going on, and Pool asked him the same question. He told the officer he had just backed in to take a little nap. Pool asked for identification, but the man said he’d forgotten his wallet. He gave a name and date of birth. Pool gave that name to dispatch and was told that a person with the same last name but a different first name, Jacob Lane, was wanted for vehicle theft.

Pool checked through the IDACS database and found a photo for the original name the driver had given him. Then he pulled up the photo for Jacob Lane. “It was clear to me that I was dealing with Jacob Lane,” he wrote in his report.

When Pool returned to the vehicle, he called the driver by the name Jacob. He asked him to step out of the car and asked why he’d lied about his name. Lane apologized. He was handcuffed and placed in the front seat of the patrol car.

While doing a vehicle inventory, Pool and Sgt. Chad Williams reported finding multiple bags of syringes, multiple tools including an industrial-sized bolt cutter, car parts, multiple batteries, a few small tin caps and some rubber bands. Pool wrote that tin caps are commonly used to melt down illegal drugs to be drawn into syringes and be injected, and rubber bands are used to tie off a limb and expose veins.

On the way to the jail, Pool asked Lane what the needles were for and he said he got them at a recovery center. He was asked if he was a diabetic or had a medical reason to be there and he said no, but some of his friends were and they couldn’t afford them. He did not want to talk about the tools, the police report said.

The vehicle was towed.

Officers counted 198 syringes; they were photographed and destroyed, the report said.

Lane was charged on April 20 with unlawful possession of a syringe, a Level 6 felony, and false informing, a Class B misdemeanor.