MONROE — A Monroe man faces misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and drug possession after police reported he removed drugs hidden in his buttocks during a high-risk traffic stop. 

In a second case, Peter Jeremiah Knutson, 39, is also charged with several felonies related to alleged domestic abuse of a woman.

He signed two signature bonds totaling $6,500 in the cases on Sept. 10 in Green County Circuit Court. Conditions of his bond include no contact with the woman or their residence.

According to court records:

An agent with the Stateline Area Narcotics Team informed Monroe police he was working on a search warrant for Knutson’s person, vehicle and residence and requested that officers “conduct a high-risk stop on Knutson if he was observed driving.”

The agent told police Knutson, a convicted felon prohibited from possessing firearms, had recently posted a picture of himself holding a pistol on Facebook.

On Sept. 5, police spotted Knutson driving his girlfriend’s vehicle northbound from Orangeville and stopped him in Monroe near the intersection of 30th Street and 11th Avenue.

Without being asked, Knutson informed officers, “I’ll tell you what I got on me. I got some weed and I got some pills.” He went on to say the drugs were hidden in his buttocks and he would take them out, which he did.

When Knutson had trouble removing a second baggie of drugs, one officer advised him to “push and shake at the same time.” It worked, and the Saran-wrapped baggie fell from Knutson’s shorts onto the ground.

Knutson became agitated and angry, and the traffic stop attracted a group of onlookers. Knutson called them racial slurs and threatened that he was going to “blow up” Monroe so bad that “everyone was going to die.” He also told them to let him know if they “need heroin, dope.”

Police seized two grams of cannabis and 24 buspirone hydrochloride pills, which Knutson referred to as “bus boys.”

Police also executed a search warrant on his home in the 1300 block of 16th Street, but information on this search is not included with the criminal complaint.

After Knutson’s arrest, his girlfriend told police that several weeks earlier, he punched her in the eye leaving a bruise, threatened her, pushed her down on a bed and held her down by her throat, then brought her ice for her eye.

She told police she only felt safe to report the incident after he was jailed. She also said she let him drive her vehicle because “she is fearful of him when she says no,” according to an officer’s report included with the criminal complaint.