Check your locks

A UA student was diverted for possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia on Saturday at 3:45 a.m.

A University of Arizona Police Department officer was conducting parking lot checks near Fourth Street and Vine Avenue when he heard a vehicle alarm going off. The officer approached the vehicle and saw a “slight haze” coming from an open passenger door. The officer smelled burning marijuana coming from the vehicle. The officer looked inside the vehicle and didn’t see anyone inside, but saw a prescription bottle and a marijuana grinder on the back passenger seat. The officer also saw a small Ziploc bag with a green leafy substance inside on the floor of the vehicle.

A second UAPD officer arrived, and the two staked out the vehicle for a while, but nobody returned.

UAPD found the address of the vehicle’s owner to be Hopi Residence Hall. The Resident Assistant on duty at Hopi Lodge Residence Hall led the officer to the student’s room. The officers then talked to the student outside of his room and read him his Miranda rights. The officers explained that they had found burning marijuana inside the vehicle. The student said that he had not gone to his vehicle since 2 p.m. the previous day and did not lend it to anyone. He said one of the vehicle’s passenger doors doesn’t lock automatically and that some of his friends know about the faulty locking mechanism.

The student denied ownership of the marijuana and the grinder in his vehicle and gave consent to a search of the vehicle.

When the officers searched the vehicle, they found a prescription bottle with the name of another student on it. The student said the owner of the prescription bottle was a Hopi Lodge resident and may know about the faulty locking mechanism.

The owner of the vehicle was diverted through the Dean of Students Office for possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.

The officers conducted a follow-up with the owner of the prescription bottle in Hopi Lodge at 9:50 p.m.

The officers were escorted by the resident assistant on duty to the student’s room. The student said she often goes to the grocery store with her friend in the vehicle. She said the last time she was in the vehicle was “a couple of days ago,” and the prescription bottle may have fallen out of her purse. She denied being in the vehicle earlier that day. When the officers asked if she knew about the door with the faulty locking mechanism, she said she knew about it and that anyone could have broken in.