Daniel Ray Price
Note This story was updated at 11:50 a.m. Nov. 1.
Oak Ridge police allegedly found marijuana, Xanax, drug paraphernalia, and a stolen pistol in a vehicle after responding to a report of a disturbance near the U.S. Department of Energy landfill on Bear Creek Road near the Y-12 National Security Complex on Sunday, May 14, court records said.
Oak Ridge Police Department K-9 Officer Christopher Wallace said a search of the vehicle with the help of a drug-detecting canine officer found 18.4 ounces of marijuana, along with 97 Xanax (alprazolam) tablets; drug paraphernalia that included rolling papers, a grinder, digital scales, glass marijuana pipe, glass meth/crack cocaine pipe, and a snort straw; an SCCY Industries 9mm CPX2 semi automatic pistol; and a North American Arms (N.A.A.) .22LR mini revolver pistol that the Sevier County Sheriff’s Office had reported as stolen.
Charged after the search was Daniel Ray Price, 35, of Coster Lane in Knoxville. Price said all the items belonged to him, Wallace said in affidavits filed in Anderson County General Sessions Court in Oak Ridge.
Price has been charged with two counts of felony possession of Schedule IV drugs (one count for alprazolam and one for marijuana); two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony; possession of stolen property under $1,000; and possession of drug paraphernalia.
The May 14 disturbance involving Price and a co-defendant who was a passenger was reported near DOE’s Environmental Management Waste Management Facility on Bear Creek Road.
“Upon contact with the defendant, the affiant (Wallace) smelled the odor of marijuana on his person and from his vehicle,” Wallace said in the affidavits filed for the arrest of Price. “A pat-down of the defendant was conducted, and (a) small amount of purported marijuana was found in his front left pant pocket. Suspecting more illegal narcotics in the defendant’s vehicle, the affiant deployed his certified drug detection K-9 partner to conduct a free air sniff of the defendant’s vehicle, in which the affiant’s K-9 provided a positive alert to the trained odor of illegal narcotics.”
Bond for Price has been set at $80,000. He remained jailed in the Anderson County Detention Facility in Clinton on Monday morning. He has an arraignment scheduled for 1 p.m. Tuesday.
The passenger, identified as Price’s girlfriend, was charged with public intoxication and possession of drug paraphernalia because a snort straw was found under the passenger seat, and Wallace said she displayed behaviors consistent with being under the influence of smoking marijuana and she said she had smoked it within the previous hour.
More information will be added as it becomes available.
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