Cop who made pot brownies will avoid charges
Mich. officer and wife admitted using drugs taken from suspects for baking

DEARBORN, Mich. - A police officer will avoid criminal charges despite admitting he took marijuana from criminal suspects and, with his wife, baked it into brownies.

The police department’s decision not to pursue a case against former Cpl. Edward Sanchez left a bad taste in the mouth of at least one city official, who vowed to investigate.

“If you’re a cop and you’re arresting people and you’re confiscating the marijuana and keeping it yourself, that’s bad. That’s real bad,” said City Councilman Doug Thomas.

Sanchez, who resigned last year from the department in this Detroit suburb, declined comment Wednesday to the Detroit Free Press. Police Cmdr. Jeff Geisinger did not return calls seeking comment.

The department’s investigation began with a 911 call from Sanchez’s home on April 21, 2006. On a 5-minute tape of the call, obtained by the Free Press, Sanchez told an emergency dispatcher he thought he and his wife were overdosing on marijuana.

“I think we’re dying,” he said. “We made brownies and I think we’re dead, I really do.”

Sanchez later told police investigators that his wife took the marijuana out of his police vehicle while he was sleeping. In a subsequent interview, he admitted he got the marijuana out of the car himself and put it in the brownie mix, police said.

His wife also was not charged.

Another article is below.

Trooper still on the job after crash
Report alleges he may have been drunk at time of incident
BY IAN C. STOREY

Meder TRAVERSE CITY — A state police trooper allegedly had been drinking alcohol the night he smashed his personal vehicle into a utility pole and fled the scene on foot.

But David Maurice Meder, of Traverse City, a trooper at the Traverse City post, remains on active duty since the May 18 crash, despite pleading guilty to a misdemeanor offense.

Meder, 46, a trooper since 1989, awaits sentencing June 19 after pleading guilty to misdemeanor charges of failure to report an accident and failure to report an accident to fixtures.

Meder lost control of his Chevrolet Suburban the evening of May 18 on Peninsula Drive near McKinley Road, crashed into an utility pole and landed 40 feet off the road.

Grand Traverse County sheriff’s deputies responded to the crash call just before 11 p.m., but when officers arrived no one was in the Suburban.

Inside Meder’s unlocked vehicle, deputies seized a Michigan State Police uniform, two loaded handguns and Meder’s photo identification and badge.

Meder lives about four miles from the crash site, and deputies went there an hour later but said no one was home at the time, according to police reports.

The sheriff’s report alleged Meder consumed alcohol in Brady’s Bar in Traverse City before the crash. He was not charged with an alcohol-related offense.

A bar employee said Meder appeared “to be intoxicated just prior to the crash” and drank “quite a bit of alcohol,” according to police reports.

State police Traverse City post commander Lt. William Elliott, who informed sheriff’s officials of Meder’s whereabouts the next day, said Meder remains on the job.

“All I can tell you is that decision was made above me,” said Elliott. “When I asked the question I was told that he would continue to work.”

Elliot said Meder is on a previously scheduled vacation. He could not be reached for comment.

Capt. Tim Rod, who commands the state police 7th District headquarters, said the decision to keep Meder on active duty was made according to policies and “guidance” from MSP’s human resources department.

“That is the guidance they gave us until we can complete our internal investigation,” he said. “We do not begin the internal side until the criminal side is done because of the potential of interfering with a criminal case.”

Elliott and MSP Detective Sgt. Mark Harris went to Meder’s home the morning of May 19 after Elliott received word from Lansing that sheriff’s officials had run the numbers from one of Meder’s firearms through a state database.

Elliott would not comment on what Meder told him after the accident.

“I can’t talk to you about that,” he said. “The criminal case has not been officially adjudicated, and there is an internal investigation.”

Meder initially refused to cooperate with sheriff’s investigators the morning after the crash and told a sheriff’s lieutenant, “I don’t have anything to say to you,” according to police reports.

Meder also allegedly told Elliott he had been at home when the accident occurred, but later Meder filed a written statement admitting his involvement.

“I was driving home from Traverse City on Peninsula Drive when I lost control of my vehicle rolling it over,” the May 19 statement read. “Although somewhat dazed, but physically OK, I decided to walk home.”

Grand Traverse County Prosecutor Alan Schneider said he could not charge Meder with an alcohol-related offense without blood-alcohol test results or other “independent evidence.”

“There would have been no way to bring those charges,” he said.

Meder faces up to 90 days in jail and a $100 fine on the two misdemeanors.

Schneider said he was satisfied that sheriff’s officials did what they could to investigate.

“We regularly have collisions where people fail to report and we suspect they are intoxicated or something else,” he said. “It happens, but I would say both the sheriff’s department, in cooperation with the state police command, did a thorough investigation.”