What started out as a minor traffic stop last Tuesday night could end up being a lifetime in prison for a 37-year-old Beeville man.

Staff Sgt. Richard Cantu said the suspect, Alberto Rodriguez, was stopped in the 100 block of East Houston Street after Sgt. Stephen Phipps noticed his red and white Ford truck facing the wrong way while parked in the 1500 block of East Rosewood Street.

Phipps told Rodriguez he was only going to write him a warning ticket. He also gave the driver a verbal warning to have a burned out brake light repaired as quickly as possible.

Then the officer noticed a beer can in the floor on the passenger’s side of the truck. Rodriguez denied that he had been drinking that night but the officer asked if he could search the truck and if he could have a drug dog sniff out the vehicle.

Rodriguez gave Phipps permission to search the vehicle but the officer noticed that he kept putting his hands in his pockets. To assure his safety, Phipps asked Rodriguez to submit to a search of his clothing and a quick pat down revealed that he had a rectangular, metal container in the pocket of his shirt.

When Phipps took the box out of the man’s pocket he noticed some plastic protruding the lid and asked Rodriguez what was in the box. He said it contained gum.

But when Phipps opened the box he found it contained 17 plastic bags of what appeared to be cocaine inside.

The officer also found $210 in cash on the suspect, most of which was in $20 bills.

Rodriguez was taken to the Bee County Jail where he was booked on a charge of manufacture and delivery of a controlled substance, cocaine, four-200 grams. The offense is a first degree felony punishable by a prison term of from five to 99 years or life in prison and a fine of as much as $10,000.

Police also charged a 56-year-old man with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a second degree felony, after Patrolman Luis De Los Santos broke up a fight between two men in the 300 block of South Jackson Street on Jan. 13.

According to a report on file at the Beeville Police Department, De Los Santos responded to a call after someone said they heard screaming in a home on that block. The officer entered the house to find two men struggling on the floor. One of the men was holding a knife over the other. After breaking up the fight, one of the men, José Sinfuentes, said he and his two children, ages 8 and 9, had gone to the residence to visit a 41-year-old woman there. He claimed that a 45-year-old man at that address had used bad language in front of his children as the two men were drinking and when he told the man to stop a fight ensued.

He claimed the other man produced the knife and he got it away from him and started defending himself.

But the other man claimed that Sinfuentes was the one who started the fight and that his older son brought him a knife from the kitchen during the scuffle.

The woman who lived at the house then provided a story that matched the one told by the man who had been held at knifepoint when the officer entered the house. She said the men had been fighting over her. Sinfuentes was arrested and the two boys were turned over to Child Protective Services authorities.