ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
A French Quarter finance worker assured officers from the City of Betoota Municipal Police this afternoon that the small bag of white powder he had on him was a harmless anti-inflammatory drug and nothing nefarious as the police will allege in court.
Dale Jane Cooper, of Riverrun Street in Betoota Heights, was arrested shortly after 3pm today outside the Gelded Seahorse Hotel where security guards observed the 42-year-old snorting the powder off the corner of a Medicare card in the disabled toilet of the hotel.
One of the guards initially asked Mr Cooper if he was OK, to which Mr Cooper said he was sick of people asking him and he was the fourth person today to ask him.
In a statement to police, one of the security guards said they gained access to the toilet cubicle where they observed Mr Cooper sitting on the toilet with his pants down around his ankles.
“I saw his cock,” said the security guard.
“But then I saw what he was doing. He had his wallet open on the toilet paper dispenser. He had a Medicare card in one hand and a bag of white powder in the other. When I burst in, he looked up like he’d seen a ghost. I moved in and seized the bag and told him to get up. We held him until the police arrived.”
Despite his protests that he had a sore back, four policemen threw Mr Cooper to the ground and arrested him. One even made a point of driving his knee into his back, while another just punched him in the head for no reason other than it was there and they’d get away with it.
Then the canine unit arrived and they accidentally put the dog on Mr Cooper, who received treatment for a bite on his buttocks in hospital.
Mr Cooper will appear before court tomorrow morning where he’s expected to apply for bail.
More to come.
