Ex-Con Proves That Crack Is Whack
Motorist, 61, hit cop in face with tossed pipe
MAY 5--The first rule of evidence destruction is: Do not hit a cop in the face with a crack pipe tossed out your vehicle’s window.
Somehow, that bedrock criminal principle escaped ex-con Derry West, 61, during a traffic stop last month near his residence in Port St. Lucie, Florida.
According to police, West was driving a pickup truck around 11:15 PM when he was pulled over for failing to have 
lights illuminating his license plate.
West, seen at right, apparently was unaware that police officers were approaching from both sides of his Honda Ridgeline. As one cop came up to the truck on its passenger side, he spotted West “throwing a small object out of the passenger window.”
The airborne object “struck me in the face and fell to the ground,” the officer noted. “I then observed the object to be a small glass tube (crack pipe).”
West, who claimed the pipe was left in the truck by a friend, was arrested and booked into the county jail, from which he was later released on $2500 bond.
West was named in an April 29 criminal information charging him with attempted tampering with evidence, a felony, and possession of drug paraphernalia, a misdemeanor. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and is next due in court on July 8.
Outfitted with a GPS monitor, West is confined to his home with the exception of legal and medical appointments. According to court and prison records, West’s rap sheet includes convictions for armed robbery; trafficking in stolen property; grand theft; burglary; evidence tampering; possession of drug paraphernalia; and violating a domestic violence protection order.
West was also convicted in 2018 for introducing contraband into a correctional facility. As he was being booked into custody on multiple open warrants, a glass crack pipe fell from his shorts and shattered on the ground. West “then began to step on some of the pieces in an attempt to make them smaller and not usable as evidence,” according to an arrest affidavit.
“West then went on to say that he had forgotten” the crack pipe--which tested positive cocaine--was in his waistband, police reported. (3 pages)
