A 19-year-old NMU student is facing five felony charges after allegedly assaulting three police officers and damaging university property Friday, Sept. 8 while under the influence of a synthetic form of LSD.
Allen Teppo was arraigned Monday, Sept. 11 in Marquette County District Court on one count of malicious destruction of property costing $1,000 to less than $20,000; three counts of resisting arrest and obstructing a police officer causing injury; and one count of resisting and obstructing.
Teppo is currently being held in the Marquette County Jail on a $290,000 cash or surety bond. He attended a probable cause conference at 10:30 a.m Sept. 20 and is due back in court for a preliminary hearing at 3:30 p.m. Oct. 4.
Follow-up investigations are currently taking place, said Detective Lt. of Public Safety Guy LaPlante, who is also lead detective on the case. He said that it is important to note that Teppo was not under the influence of the common form of LSD or “acid.”
“What we’ve come to find out is that this isn’t your standard acid ’60s, ’70s style,” LaPlante said. “This is a synthetic derivative that they’re terming ‘acid.’ The actual chemical name varies.”
On the night of the arrest, officers were dispatched to the Gant/Spalding area due to a disorderly person, LaPlante said. When the officers found Teppo, LaPlante said he was in a violent state and assaulted three officers, injuring one.
“During the course of the arrest [the officers] were there trying to aid in stopping a problem,” LaPlante said. “Then here they become part of a situation I don’t think they anticipated becoming involved with.”
Once Teppo was secured, he was taken to Marquette General Hospital for medical attention due to injuries obtained before the arrest, LaPlante said.
This is not the first case of a student arrest due to the influence of an unknown synthetic narcotic, LaPlante added, noting that Public Safety would like to put the word out that drug-related events such as this are harmful to both students using drugs and the community around them.
“I told the person involved, I said, ‘The moment you put that on your tongue, the moment you took that, your education here was done, you were done in this community—at this college. You were done. That’s a pretty big thing for just putting that on your tongue,’” LaPlante said.
