Ripley County: Saturday morning, March 16 at approximately 9:30 Senior Trooper Chris Richey stopped a 2004 Freightliner straight truck on I-74 near the 153 mile marker in Ripley County for a traffic violation and to do a commercial vehicle inspection. After initial contact with the driver, 46 year old Jerome Upshaw of Cincinnati, S/Tpr. Richey asked him to drive to the westbound rest area where it would be safe to do an inspection. As the truck pulled away S/Tpr. Richey noticed brown liquid run from underneath the door on the back of the truck onto the ground.
Upon arrival at the rest area, he had the driver open the back of the truck where observed open boxes of vegetables sitting on boxes of chicken as well as raw chicken sitting on open boxes of vegetables. S/Tpr. Richey made contact with the Ripley County Health Department and Holly Rose from that agency responded to the scene. During her inspection she discovered approximately 16 boxes or packages of broccoli, egg roll filling, poultry, and cabbage were unfit for human consumption due to unsafe handling and cross contamination issues. She found a whole chicken lying in a box of egg roll wrappers. Approximately 200 pounds of food was destroyed as a result of the inspection. According to S/Tpr. Richey, the truck was enroute to make deliveries to Chinese restaurants in Mooresville, Avon, Plainfield and Indianapolis. In addition, S/Tpr. Richey also found 11 minor commercial vehicle violations on the truck and driver.
