By Shavonne Walker

shavonne.walker@salisburypost.com

Police say they had to shock a man with a Taser after he refused to listen to commands during a traffic stop over the weekend.

Salisbury Police charged Rennell Jeffrey Parson Jr., 24, of the 900 block of Holmes Street, with felony possession of stolen goods, misdemeanor resist, obstruct, delay an officer, felony possession of a firearm by a felon, and misdemeanor possession of marijuana.

Police were conducting a traffic stop Saturday around 1 a.m. at the corner of Bringle Ferry Road and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue. The driver, later identified as Rennell Parson, rolled his window down partially after the officer approached his vehicle.

The officer could smell marijuana and asked Parson to roll his window down further. Police had a K-9 search around the vehicle when Parson began to fidget. The dog did alert on the vehicle, a police report said.

Parson reached under his seat three times as officers instructed him to display his hands. Parson told the officer he had a small amount of marijuana. Parson was asked to step out of the vehicle and told the officer the 1 gram of marijuana was all he had.

Parson moved his hands toward his hip area, twice and was instructed to remove and display his hands. He did not, so police shocked him with a Taser, at which time Parson fell out of the vehicle, said Police Capt. Shelia Lingle.

He complied after being shocked. The officer searched Parson and found no other substances on him. His passenger, a woman, was asked to step out of the vehicle. As she unfastened her seat belt, the woman screamed and jumped back. Police were unsure of why she was reacting the way she did, Lingle said.

Police searched where she was sitting and underneath grocery bags was a 9 mm Keltec handgun. She did not know the gun was there and police said Parson had tried to hide the gun underneath the bags in her seat. The gun was reported stolen from Salisbury.

He was issued a $25,000 secured bond and has since been released from the Rowan County Detention Center.