A homeless man in Leesburg was arrested after accidentally pulling out a bag of narcotics and paraphernalia during a bicycle traffic stop.
An officer spotted 41-year-old Ryan Christopher Bowser riding a bicycle northbound on Beecher Street at 7:35 p.m. Sunday, according to an arrest report from the Leesburg Police Department. The bicycle had no front or rear lighting, so the officer conducted a traffic stop on Beecher Street and Waitman Avenue.
After giving Bowser’s information to dispatch, the officer confirmed he had no active warrants and gave him advice on bicycle regulations. He then asked for consent to search his person for contraband. Bowser denied consent, saying he only had “some vapes,” the report said.
The officer requested to see the items in Bowser’s pockets, to which he complied. When Bowser reached into his front right shorts pocket, he took out a stick of Halls cough drops and partially removed a clear Ziplock bag. He quickly shoved the bag back into his pocket but not before the officer noticed what looked like the end of a glass pipe commonly used to take narcotics, the report said.
At that point, the officer took the bag from Bowser’s pocket and saw it contained a glass smoking pipe with burnt residue. It also had a baggie with 13.3 grams of methamphetamine and a baggie with four orange and three blue alprazolam pills, the report said.
Bowser was subsequently arrested for possession of methamphetamine, alprazolam and drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Lake County Jail with bond set at $6,000.
He was also arrested in July 2021 after allegedly attacking his wife when she veered off the road while driving.