At the end of every month, I scour the LexisNexis and Factiva news databases for stories about the criminal exploits of people who are allegedly high on the dissociative drug phencyclidine, or PCP. Urban legend maintains that a dose of PCP—also known as angel dust—can give you superstrength, or make you hunger for human flesh. These are exaggerations. That said, PCP can lower a user’s inhibitions in newsworthy fashion. To wit:
Patriot games. When NFL star Aaron Hernandez was arrested this summer and charged with murder, a lot of people looked at his alleged actions and asked, “What the hell was that guy smoking?” According to Rolling Stone, he was smoking PCP. In a long profile published last week, Paul Solotaroff reported, among other things, that Hernandez had been using angel dust for over a year, “which is when all of this crazy shit started,” according to an unnamed friend. While the article doesn’t present much proof that Hernandez had been dusting, it certainly wouldn’t be the weirdest thing we’ve learned about him since his arrest. Plus, this would help explain why he’s always posing without a shirt on.
And speaking of naked guys… This month’s tale of nudity starts off scary and ends up ridiculous, as most of these stories do, and also involves an inept kidnapping attempt, as most of these stories don’t. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, a shirtless Philadelphia man named Daniel Johnson allegedly tried to snatch a 3-year-old girl out of the arms of her parents. The girl’s parents fought Johnson off, and he ran away. When police found him, he had removed the rest of his clothes and was rolling around on the grass. A local police official told the Inquirer that the “whacked out” suspect was on PCP, and that he “ain’t dealing with a straight deck.” Indeed.
My new favorite politician. So I’m not really what you’d call a “voter,” but I could definitely be persuaded to cast my ballot for Maryland state delegate Don Dwyer, who has had an eventful and hilarious summer. Dwyer was arrested on reckless driving charges this August, but it turns out he had reason to be jittery. According to the Associated Press, two days earlier, Dwyer had been attacked in his backyard by a violent neighbor who, police believe, became upset “after Dwyer refused to smoke a cigarette laced with PCP that the man offered him.” (He was just being neighborly.) The AP also reports that the man “ordered his bulldog to bite Dwyer and then the man threw the lawmaker into the water.” Dwyer will soon be sentenced on separate drunken boating charges. Four more years! Four more years!
Not without my daughter! The Chicago Sun-Times reports on the exploits of Emmanuel “Blue” Wiggins, 24, who was holding both his 2-year-old daughter and, allegedly, a substantial amount of “a leafy substance laced with PCP” when the car in which he was riding was stopped by police last month. Thinking quickly, Wiggins allegedly stashed the drugs inside his daughter’s pants—a ruse that might have worked if the cops hadn’t noticed the odd bulge in the little girl’s trousers. “Please don’t take my daughter away. I got nervous when you guys stopped us and I tried to hide it in her clothes,” Wiggins allegedly told the cops after they found the drugs. The state might not listen to that plea, but Wiggins gets points for caring, and also for not trying to claim that the drugs were his daughter’s.
PCP Story of the Month. Hiding PCP in your daughter’s pants is a bad idea. Hiding PCP in your own shoe is, potentially, a worse one. The Bryan, Texas Eagle reports that Michael Deon Green was pulled over for a routine traffic stop and arrested on charges of driving with a suspended license. When they brought him to the station, cops noticed that Green seemed particularly lethargic and incoherent, and that his feet smelled minty fresh. The reason for this soon became clear:
Once at the jail, Green was told to remove his shoes and seemed to be “moving in slow motion,” according to the report. When he took off his right shoe, the smell of PCP became stronger, and that’s when the officer discovered a small mouthwash bottle containing PCP, police said. The leaky bottle soaked Green’s sock and bottom of his shoe in liquid PCP, the document states.
The foot is a thirsty appendage, friends, and once it gets a taste of liquid PCP, it will drink it down to the last drop. Green went straight to the hospital, where he received medical attention, and, presumably, a whole lot of bemused glances from emergency room personnel. When Green came to, he allegedly told the police “that he had no memory of the past few hours.” Of course he didn’t.
Previous Months in PCP: An Alleged PCP User Was in an Ambulance. It Crashed. Here’s What Happened Next; The Guy Who Allegedly Had the Drug in His Sock and Asked Cops “Am I Dead?”; Firetruck Follies and the World’s Worst Sandwich; Car Crashes, Delusions of Divinity, and a Big Night in Monroe, La.; Naked Guys, Car Chases, and Big Jugs of Sweet Tea (That Are Full of PCP).
