By Pat Culverhouse

Taking a nap in his vehicle parked beside convenience store gas pumps and giving police an unusual identification has earned a Heflin man a bunk in the parish prison on drug possession charges.

Ashtin Renard Jones, 37, has been booked for possession of CDS Sch. II (methamphetamines), possession of CDS Sch. I (synthetic marijuana) and possession of drug paraphernalia after his arrest Tuesday morning.

He is being held at Bayou Dorcheat Correctional Center under a $3,502 bond.

Chief of Police Jared McIver said officers were called to the 1400 block of Shreveport Rd. around 8:45 a.m. to check on a man reportedly asleep in his vehicle which was parked at the store’s fuel pumps.

When asked for identification, Jones instead reportedly handed officers a scale commonly used to weigh illegal narcotics. When the officers asked Jones to step from his vehicle, they noticed a bag containing a leafy substance behind the driver’s seat.

Officers reportedly found suspected methamphetamine during a search of Jones, and a subsequent search of his vehicle reportedly uncovered a glass pipe, commonly used to smoke illegal narcotics.

McIver said the evidence seized included 3.8 grams of suspected synthetic marijuana and 1.1 grams of methamphetamines.

This information has been provided by a law enforcement agency as public information. Persons named as suspects in a criminal investigation, or arrested and charged with a crime, have not been convicted of any criminal offense and are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

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