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Friday, March 29, 2024

Head-banging and kicking homeless man claims drugs found beside his seat were already inside vehicle

Terry Eugene Fischer Jr.

A homeless man who banged his head on the window bars of a Marion County sheriff’s deputy’s patrol vehicle was jailed early Tuesday morning after a K-9 alerted on a vehicle he was riding in during a traffic stop.

A deputy stopped a dark-colored four-door Saturn in the 19000 block of NE 160th Avenue Road shortly before 1 a.m. A sheriff’s K-9 deputy arrived a short time later and his dog alerted during an open-air sniff, indicating the likely presence of narcotics, a sheriff’s office report states.

Both the driver and 40-year-old Terry Eugene Fischer Jr., who is homeless, immediately told the deputies that a sheriff’s lieutenant had stopped them 30 minutes earlier when they were traveling in a white van. They said the lieutenant had searched that vehicle and hadn’t found anything, the reports says.

Deputies then searched the Saturn and located a clear 35mm film canister in-between the front passenger seat and the center console. It contained a baggie with a clear crystal-like substance that field-tested positive for methamphetamine, the report says.

Fischer claimed the drugs didn’t belong to him and he didn’t know they were in the vehicle. After being placed in a patrol vehicle, he started banging his head on the window bars and kicking the door while demanding that his sweatshirt be removed. When the deputy confronted him, he said the film canister containing the drugs was already inside the vehicle when he got in it, the report says.

Fischer was transported to the Marion County Jail and charged with possession of methamphetamine and probation violations for driving with license suspended or revoked and a weapons violation. He was released early Thursday morning on his own recognizance and is due in court Feb. 11 and Feb. 19, jail records show.