A 73-year-old man’s spotless driving record nearly got him off the hook during a traffic stop Tuesday night, until he tried to snort cocaine right in front of an incredulous officer. 
 
 Officer Nic Abts-Olsen was patrolling in the Colman neighborhood near Martin Luther King Jr. Way South and South Massachusetts around 8:30 PM when a man in a silver Toyota drove past him with his headlights off. 
 
 After pulling over the 73-year-old man, Officer Abts-Olsen checked his license and registration, and walked back to the Toyota, where he saw the driver portioning out a scoop of cocaine from a small glass vial. 
 
 When officer Abts-Olsen knocked on the driver’s car window, he apparently startled the man, leading him to spill cocaine all over his hands and the floor of his vehicle. 
 
 “Are you kidding?,” Officer Abts-Olsen asked the man, who quickly tried to brush away the white powder. The man initially denied having any cocaine, though he admitted he had “vitamins” in his possession. 
 
 Finally, the man relented, complimented Officer Abts-Olsen on his keen detection skills and admitted that snorting cocaine in the middle of a traffic stop was, perhaps, a poor decision. Officer Abts-Olsen also informed the man he had only intended to issue him a warning, due to his clean driving record, until the cocaine came out. 
 
 Officers did not immediately cite the man, but arrested and booked him into the King County Jail for narcotics possession. 
 
 The encounter was captured on in-car video, which we’ve posted below, along with a reminder to have a happy, safe holiday season! ||||| A Will County man is upset about how remains of his late daughter were handled during a traffic stop. 
 
 Anthony Butler, 25, of Romeoville , said a vial containing his daughter's ashes was spilled and emptied after he was pulled over Sunday night in Homer Glen. 
 
 "Almost all her ashes are gone," Butler told me Tuesday. "I have nothing else to remember her." 
 
 Butler said his daughter, Mariah, died 11 days after she was born in 2014. He said she was born with HLHS, or hypoplastic left heart syndrome — a congenital heart defect. 
 
 Butler, an auto mechanic, said he usually wears a pendant urn containing her cremated remains on a chain around his neck. On Sunday, he said, he was working on the transmission of his girlfriend's vehicle and since he knew he'd get greasy, he hung the pendant on the rear-view mirror of his blue, 2001, four-door Chevy Blazer. 
 
 "(I) just got it registered and insured, then this happened," he said. 
 
 Butler said when he and a friend left after working on his girlfriend's vehicle, they were passed on 143rd Street by a Will County sheriff's police car. The Blazer's front license plate was not displayed. 
 
 "He made a U-turn," Butler said of the deputy. "I knew I'd get a ticket." 
 
 Butler said he received two citations at 11:04 p.m. for failure to display a front license plate and failure to show proof of insurance. Butler said the address listed on the tickets is 14300 S. Bell Road. 
 
 He said he pulled over into the parking lot of Northwest Homer Fire Protection District Station 2 at 13010 Orland Park Road, just west of Bell Road and 143rd Street. 
 
 The sheriff's police, which patrols Homer Glen on a contract basis, provided an account of the incident. 
 
 "During the course of the traffic stop the officer asked for and received consent to search the vehicle," said Deputy Chief Thomas Budde, who heads the enforcement/patrol division for the sheriff. 
 
 "The officer came across a small glass vial in the vehicle (that contained) a white powdered substance," Budde told me. "It was very similar in appearance to narcotics." 
 
 Budde said Butler consented to have a small sample of the vial's contents field-tested for drugs, and that the results were negative. 
 
 Butler told me he was upset by how the officer handled the vial containing his daughter's remains. 
 
 "He asked me about it, and I said, 'Please do not dump that out," Butler told me. "I don't remember giving consent" to a field test, he added. 
 
 Budde said Butler told the officer what was in the vial. 
 
 "The driver of the vehicle informed him they were the ashes of a deceased child," Budde said. 
 
 The deputy chief said the officer only removed a small amount of the vial's contents for testing. 
 
 "When we field test for any drug we only take a miniscule amount," Budde said. "He was careful not to spill anything." 
 
 But Butler said when he returned to his vehicle after the field test, his daughter's ashes were on the console between the Blazer's front seats. The vial cap was missing, he said, adding he still does not know what happened to the cap. 
 
 "The rest of them spilled," Butler said. "My daughter's urn is open on the console and I had to scrape up what was left." 
 
 Butler said the ashes in the small vial were his only link to his daughter, his only child. The girl's mother also has remains of their child, he said, but he no longer is in contact with her. 
 
 Budde said he reviewed dashcam video of the incident, but the video doesn't show what happened inside the vehicle when the officer placed the vial on the center console after the field test. 
 
 The Daily Southtown requested a copy of the video Tuesday through the Freedom of Information Act but did not immediately receive a response. Budde said the sheriff's department would consult with the Will County state's attorney's office before responding to the request. 
 
 A friend of Butler posted information Monday on Facebook about the incident. By Tuesday, the post had been shared more than 500 times. Most comments were supportive of Butler and critical of how police handled the situation. 
 
 Butler told me he remains upset about the incident, and that he met for an hour Monday with a sergeant and lieutenant who supervise the sheriff's department patrols in Homer Glen. 
 
 "I did not even get an apology from the officer after it tested negative for everything," Butler said. "That officer took my last reason to get up in the morning." 
 
 Budde said the deputy who made the stop was off duty Tuesday and Wednesday, and that the issue of an apology would be addressed during the officer's next shift. 
 
 "There was no intent (to harm)," Budde said. "I think the deputy was just caught off-guard. He'd never seen human remains packaged that way." 
 
 tslowik@tronc.com 
 
 Twitter @tedslowik
– "Are you kidding? You're about to snort coke on the side of the road?" A routine traffic stop on Tuesday in Seattle ended with one poor police officer getting increasingly incredulous after the 73-year-old man he pulled over allegedly tried to snort some coke in the middle of their interaction, the Seattle Times reports. According to the police, officer Nic Abts-Olsen pulled the man over for driving without his lights on and was about to let him off with a warning when the man started removing some cocaine from a small vial. Easily caught in the act, the man claimed the white powder was "vitamins" before fessing up and complimenting the officer's "keen detection skills," according to police. "What would possess you to do that during a traffic stop with a police officer right behind you? I just don't understand," a frustrated Abts-Olsen can be heard asking on his dashcam video. "I don't understand it either," the man replies. The man was arrested on suspicion of drug possession.