Cops Plant Backpack Full of Cigarettes & Booze Outside School, Arrest Good Samaritan Who Tries to Remove It

ALBUQUERQUE (CN) - A good Samaritan claims Albuquerque police filed a bogus felony charge against him in a harebrained sting they set up by planting a backpack with beer, cigarettes and a computer outside a high school. He says he picked up the backpack so children wouldn't drink the beer or smoke the cigarettes - for which he was charged with felony larceny.

Preston Sanchez says he stopped by a downtown ATM machine to withdraw money when he and a woman in line saw the backpack, "abandoned next to the ATM" and "in plaint view of a charter high school."

He says the woman "asked a passing child if it was his backpack," and the kid said no. So Sanchez and the woman discussed what to do with it.

"On inspection the backpack contained beer and cigarettes," Sanchez says. "The backpack had been left across the street and in plain view of a charter high school. Plaintiff was worried the children from the high school would find the backpack and make use of the beer and cigarettes."

So after he withdrew money from his account, Sanchez says, "he was forcibly detained by defendants" as he tried to get into his car with the backpack.

He says he "attempted to explain to defendant that he did not want to beer to be taken by the nearby schoolchildren."

To no avail.

"Defendant [Albuquerque police Office Benjamin] Melendrez arrested him with felony larceny for taking the backpack."