The Chanticleer

Issue date: 3/17/06 Section: News

Media Credit: Courtesy of UPD The money and drugs shown were confiscated from Deandrew Terrell Jackson during his arrest at the Roundhouse.

Since August 2005, there have been 10 incidents involving marijuana on the campus of Jacksonville State University. Four were in dorm rooms, four others were in buildings around campus and the other two were just off campus.

These 10 incidents resulted in 13 arrests, due to multiple arrests resulting from the same complaint on occasion.

One arrest, made last Thursday, took 13 bags of marijuana off the market at JSU.

Corporal Neil Fetner was manning UPD's dispatch when the call came in from a university employee that three young men were smoking weed behind the Roundhouse on the Quad.

"Keyed up on the radio - 1077 complaint on the Quad in the area of the roundhouse. Officer comes back says he's 1023, that quick he's already there," said Fetner.

The officer identified himself as UPD and asked the three men to stop. One of them, Deandrew Terrell Jackson, decided to run - right into the arms of two other officers.

"We were coming up the breezeway there between TMB and the Quad and we're catching this radio traffic that the guy's running," said Stacey Hendrix, one of the responding officers. "As me and my partner are moving into the breezeway, lo and behold, the guy comes around the corner and runs straight into us."

According to the officers involved in the arrest, Jackson was acting disoriented and was obviously intoxicated.

"He's already committed two crimes. One is public intoxication - he was intoxicated to the point where he was a safety threat to himself. Two, he obstructed an investigation. When he was told 'University Police-stop!' he decided to run."

When he was searched incident to arrest, the officers found 13 bags of marijuana ready for sale as well as about $1,100 in cash.

Jackson was arrested for felony possession of marijuana, public intoxication and obstructing government operations. He is currently out on a $4,000 bond awaiting trial.

To put JSU's 13 marijuana-related arrests in perspective, the campus had 9,110 students enrolled during the fall semester. In 2004, the University of Alabama, with a student enrollment of 20,969 had 30 arrests for on-campus drug violations, 10 in their dorms.

Incidents in the dorms of JSU have been reported in only two residence halls so far - Dixon and Sparkman.

Marijuana issues have also claimed an athlete. On March 6, Bradford Harry Spencer Jr., better known as B.J., was arrested for possession.

"On any college campus you have two problems," said Jim Fuller, JSU's athletic director. "One is alcohol and one is drugs. All I can ever do is talk to our athletes."

Fuller would neither confirm or deny that Spencer's suspension from the last two games of the season was a result of his drug charge.

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