Photo by James Short.
The man said he was teaching another to drive when police initiated a traffic stop, according. to reports.
A traffic stop of a vehicle in the Ambler Borough resulted in drug charges for one Philadelphia man.
At 10:15 p.m. on Sept. 20, the Borough of Ambler Police reported that they witnessed a vehicle driving without its headlights on traveling in the northbound lanes of Bethlehem Pike. Police said that, due to this violation, they began following the black, Volkswagen Jetta as it made a left-hand turn onto Highland Avenue, they made a traffic stop near North Street, within the borough.
Reports stated that police made contact with the driver and his passenger, Zion Khalil Tyson, 20, of the 5000 block of Wade Street in Philadelphia. Tyson said that he did not have the car’s headlights on, as one of them was out and that it was his grandfather’s car, said reports. Tyson also relayed that he was assisting the driver by teaching him to drive.
Police said that an odor of marijuana was “emanating from the vehicle.” The reports noted that neither car occupant was a medical marijuana patient. Tyson gave police, according to the report, permission to search the vehicle, and police asked if there more than a personal amount marijuana in the car twice, to which he said, “No” both times.
When police searched the car’s trunk, reports stated that a black bag with “multiple individual small baggies with marijuana in them.” According to reports, a blue bag that had a quantity of 3.5 ounces of “individually packaged” was also found in the car. Tyson said that the materials were all his personal belongings, police said.
According to reports, police continued searching and found a “white plastic bag” that had a “large quantity of empty medicine holder capsules and a large quantity of empty individual small white plastic bags in the same bag.”
The car’s driver was released, while Tyson was taken into custody until he could be released into his mother’s custody at 1:56 a.m., according to reports. Tyson was charged with a felony count of manufacture, delivery, or possession with intent to manufacture or deliver, as well as a misdemeanor counts of delivery or intent to deliver drug paraphernalia and a subsequent infraction for driving without lighted lamps.
Tyson faces his charges at a preliminary hearing on Oct. 18 at 10 a.m. before Magisterial District Judge Douglas H. Lavenberg.
All suspects and defendants are innocent until proven guilty. This story was compiled using public court records.
