Incident at Southern Kentucky Walmart leaves man facing charges

MONTICELLO, Ky. (WYMT) - What started out as a shopping trip for one Southern Kentucky deputy ended up with one Wayne County man facing charges.

It happened Thursday night just after 10:30 at the Monticello Walmart.

Deputy Derek Dennis went into the store to make a purchase when he spotted another customer that he had an active warrant out on.

When Dennis went to arrest the man, later identified as Jonathan Moran, 45, of Monticello, and asked if he had illegal on him, he pulled his hand out of his pocket and had something in his fist.

The deputy then asked Moran to put his hands behind his back so he could handcuff him. At that point, the suspect put a plastic baggie in his mouth and tried to swallow it. Deputy Dennis put Moran on the floor and held his throat to keep him from swallowing it. Moran ended up spitting it out onto the floor of the store, but continued to struggle with Dennis until he told the suspect that he would taze him if he did not stop. Once Moran stopped struggling and got up, Dennis found another baggie on the ground where he had been laying.

The deputy was able to take him into custody and take him to the Wayne County Detention Center. When he went back to the office to do the paperwork and process the baggies through a machine the department has that identifies unknown substances, he found out one of the baggies contained meth and the other was fentanyl.

Moran is charged with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and two counts of possession of a controlled substance. He is also facing the original charges included in the existing warrant.

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