Crime & Safety

Drug Arrest After Traffic Stop

Darien police said a woman stopped for minor traffic violations was found to have narcotics with her in the car.

After a Darien police officer stopped a car Thursday for a traffic violation on Tokeneke Road, the officer found the driver had heroin and morphine in the car with her, police said. 

Darien police gave this account of the incident:

Janice Tate of 32 ½ Ryan Ave., Norwalk, was driving a 2012 Honda Accord on Tokeneke Road when a police officer saw she drove over the double yellow line and was following very close to a vehicle just in front of her car.

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The officer stopped Tate just after she drove on to the southbound Exit 12 entrance ramp to Interstate 95. By doing a background check on the name Tate originally gave the officer ("Joyce Tate"), the officer determined she had previously been arrested on narcotics possession charges.

Drugs possessed by a driver going by any other name would smell as sweet to Zulu, the Darien Police Department's K-9 dog, who was brought in to do a "free air sniff."

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Zulu indicated the smell of drugs on the front, driver's side door handle and in a small black canvas bag on the floor in front of the front passenger seat.

In the bag, police found folded wax paper holding a white powder. Police also found a pill bottle holding 10 more pieces of folded wax paper containing the same powder, as well as an unmarked pill bottle holding two pills and a white straw with a white powder residue on it.

Police later determined the powder in the wax paper was heroin and the two pills were morphine.

Tate later told police that her real name is Janice, not Joyce.

She was arrested on charges of possession of narcotics, possession of drug paraphernalia, obtaining drugs illegally and interfering with an officer.

Tate later posted a $2,500 bond and is scheduled to appear Oct. 12 in state Superior Court in Stamford. Police also learned that Norwalk police had three arrest warrants for her on charges of violating probation. She later posted bonds for those arrests, as well.


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