Razor blade-covered pro-Democrat campaign signs spark police response in Pennsylvania
On the evening of Aug. 8, three Pennsylvania state troopers in unmarked cars arrived at the doorstep of a local apartment house in Fayette County. They walked up the front steps without knocking and announced they were there to conduct a surprise inspection.
“If I can’t do business here, I’m going to start enforcing the law,” said Trooper Dwayne Smith of the Pennsylvania State Police.
Just minutes earlier, Smith and his partner had been walking up the front steps to check on a resident. They entered a kitchen, saw a window open and saw a woman, who has not been identified by her family, sitting with a young child and smoking a cigarette. Smith saw her smoking in the window.
“Smoking is strictly prohibited in residences, and we came here to smoke,” Smith said.
The woman said she was just smoking. When Smith and his partner left the apartment house, a search warrant was in the back of an unmarked car.
In this photo provided by the Fayette County District Attorney’s Office, a man and woman, who are not identified in this photo, were arrested after troopers conducted a surprise inspection of a residence where they found a warrant to search for evidence of illegal drug trade. (Fayette County District Attorney’s Office via AP)
Troopers searched the apartment, where they found a bag of crack cocaine and a digital scale used to weigh crack cocaine. A trooper took the cocaine out of the bag and put another bag of crack cocaine on the scale, according to court records.
Smith and his partner then called into the Fayette County District Attorney’s Office and got the warrant to search the residence. They left the scene without conducting the search.
A few hours later, a man and woman, who are not identified in this photo, were arrested as a result of the search. Trooper Smith is shown in a photo taken by a news photographer after the arrest.
Smith and his partner have not been disciplined or reprimanded for the incident.
The Fayette County District Attorney’s Office released this photo to The Associated Press on Friday.
While the District Attorney’s office did not identify the resident involved in the search or the residence where the warrant was found, records show the woman was the mother of the man and young child. The family did not