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Memphis Police Bust Marijuana “Grow House”

Memphis police officers got a few tips on how to grow pot at a bust near the Galloway Golf Course on Friday.

Eight “how to” books on growing weed indoors were recovered from the home of 58-year-old Marquis Archibald. Apparently, Archibald followed through on his avid reading habits: Police also nabbed 48 pot plants and over three pounds of harvested marijuana.

The bust came after the MPD’s Organized Crime Unit received an anonymous complaint about a possible “grow house.” Archibald allowed officers inside his home, where they discovered a marijuana growing set-up with an irrigation system and heat control in a shed attached to the residence.

Three handguns were also discovered hidden underneath a cat’s play-box.

Archibald was charged with felony possession of a controlled substance.

— Bianca Phillips

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Former Tiger Shawne Williams Busted for Pot in Indiana

Indiana Pacers forward and former University of Memphis star Shawne Williams was arrested today on charges of marijuana possession and driving without a license. Williams, who was driving an SUV, was pulled over for making an illegal lane change.

The police report states Williams was being held at the Marion County Jail on charges of possession of marijuana, driving without a license, driving with an expired license plate, and failure to signal a lane change.

At 12:45 a.m., police pulled over a 2007 black Cadillac with an expired Tennessee license plate after it committed a traffic infraction on Martin Luther King Drive.

Williams was accompanied by two other individuals. One of them, 32-year-old Roderick Helton of Memphis, was carrying a Smith & Wesson 9-mm handgun that had been reported stolen in Collierville. He was also arrested for illegal possession of a handgun.

The third passenger was Roosevelt Rollins, 21, also of Memphis, who was detained on charges of marijuana possession after he admitted that the “blunt” found in the vehicle’s ashtray was his.

“The guy in the front passenger seat, Mr. Rollins, said the marijuana was his and Mr. Williams denied knowledge of the marijuana even being in his car even though you could obviously smell the odor of burnt marijuana,” Sgt. Matthew Mount, a city police spokesman, said.

The 6-foot-9 Williams, was drafted in the first round in 2006. He averaged 3.9 points and 1.8 rebounds in 46 games last season for the Pacers.

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The Cheat Sheet

More than a hundred customers line up outside the Apple store in Saddle Creek so they can plunk down $499 and be the first people in Memphis to own the new iPhones, which go on sale at precisely 6:30 p.m. Friday evening. We imagine their very first call went something like this: “Guess what I just bought!”

An employee of a vending machine company gets upset when he can’t park his van close enough to the building he needs to service. That building just happens to be the headquarters for the Drug Enforcement Administration. And when he exchanges some choice words (we can’t print them here) with nearby agents, they notice a bag filled with marijuana hanging from the man’s pocket. The man is arrested, and his van is confiscated. No word on just what the fellow was trying to put in the vending machines.

Greg Cravens

Agents with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency — in an undercover sting with the deadly accurate title of “Operation Striking Distance” — make arrests throughout the state and confiscate more than 100 poisonous reptiles. The catch includes vipers, copperheads, rattlesnakes, and even something called a monocled cobra, whose bite can kill an adult in less than 15 minutes. Look, with all the murders, shootings, and stabbings around here, we really don’t need snakes to make our city even more dangerous.

The Memphis City Schools releases the results of an interesting survey that claims that 90 percent of teachers and 80 percent of students actually feel safe in school. That’s good news, we suppose. But looked at another way, 10 percent of teachers and 20 percent of students were probably too afraid to fill out the forms.