Tennessee truck driver delivering produce to schools found with fentanyl, loaded gun
A delivery driver dropping off produce to a Middle Tennessee school was found will fentanyl and marijuana in the truck (Photo: Franklin County Sheriff's Office
FRANKLIN COUNTY, Tenn. (WZTV) — A delivery driver dropping off produce to a Middle Tennessee school was found with fentanyl and marijuana in the truck, according to police.
A School Resource Officer (SRO) working at Sewanee Elementary School in Franklin County smelled marijuana coming from the delivery truck as it drove passed him and after speaking with driver Christopher James Duncan, determines there were drugs in the truck.
Inside, the officer found 7.6 ounces of what is believed to be fentanyl, 9 ounces marijuana, a loaded 9mm handgun, and over $4,000 in cash.
Sergeant Samuel Davidson with the Franklin County Sherriff's Department says this was a big bust. He adds, “7.6 ounces when you do the math, that comes out to just shy of 72,000 people that could’ve been killed by this fentanyl.”
Sergeant Davidson praises the work of SRO Josh Alexander. Sergeant Davidson says, "Our SRO's do a great job every day, but School Resource Officer Josh Alexander did an outstanding job today and were super proud of him. He followed up, he did exactly what he was supposed to do, and because of that there was a tremendous amount of suspected fentanyl taken off the street.”
Police say Duncan also made two other deliveries at local schools before his arrest. Produce delivered to Sewanee Elementary, Cowan Elementary, and Huntland School were seized.
Sergeant Davidson says students are no longer threatened, as all the produce delivered to the Franklin County Schools were isolated and seized.
And although FOX 17 News was not given the name of the vendor delivering this produce to schools, we saw the truck for ourselves. It has “Forestwood Farms” plastered on the side and it is a company based in Alabama, where Duncan is from.
FOX 17 News reached out by email and phone to the Alabama based company where we confirmed Christopher Duncan worked at the Huntsville location. And after being unsuccessful for two days in a row, we sent a team out to the company from our sister station in Birmingham, Alabama. However, they were told the owner was on vacation.
We also called and emailed Forestwood Farms several times before we finally got a response from the president of the company. Randy Scott tells us:
"We are a small family own business for over 40 years we have never had anything to happen like this before.
We applaud the work of the SRO officer.
That employee has been terminated.
We do not not condone this by no means.
We do background checks and we were never giving any reason to suspect anything in this case.
We work diligently to protect our product and our customers."
Duncan has a bond set at $250,000.
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