Tybee Breeze

prosecutors with experts who can claim, under
oath and in front of a jury, that what an officer
charged an offender with possessing was indeed
marijuana, and eliminate completely any doubt that
a defense attorney might create in the minds of the
jury.
TIPD has three officers certified as
Marijuana ID Technicians and Expert Witnesses.
They routinely test the dope found at crime
scenes, using a microscope and sensitive weight
scale. They can—and frequently do—testify in
court for the prosecution about the nature and
amount of marijuana in any given case. The
amount of marijuana, determined by its weight, is
the deciding factor in whether or not to charge
someone with simple possession—a
misdemeanor—or with possession with intent to
distribute—a felony.
The team from the GBI Crime Lab was
impressed with our setup, and could find nothing
significant wrong. They told us they would see us
again in two years. We’ll be ready then, too.
Road Check
For three hours on April 28, TIPD officers
conducted a road check on Butler Avenue near 9th
Street. In a road check, one or two officers scan
passing traffic, looking for obvious violations such
as not wearing a seat belt, expired tags, cracked
windshields, or illegally tinted windshields. Those
cars are then waved off the road, where other
officers write the citations. Road checks aren’t the
same as road blocks, in which every car is
stopped and the driver
asked for identification and
insurance information. But
they are hard work just the
same, and the results are
always interesting.
In this particular
operation, officers wrote a
total of 69 citations and
made one arrest. Most of
the tickets were for seat belt
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