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The officers stopped the Toyota Camry in the 700 block of River Street in Paterson around 4:45 a.m. Tuesday and quickly spotted several motor vehicle violations, Passaic County Sheriff Richard Berdnik said.
They also smelled the odor of burnt marijuana, he said.
As they approached, the officers saw the rear passenger who’d been drinking the Hennessey push a fanny pack with his feet under the driver’s seat, the sheriff said.
As colleagues removed him from the vehicle, another officer spotted the butt of a handgun sticking out of the pack, Berdnik said.
The black, wooden-handled Smith & Wesson revolver was loaded with six .38-caliber rounds of ball ammunition, he said. It also was unregistered, the sheriff said.
Richard Burke, 26, of Passaic was charged with unlawful weapons possession and sent to the county jail pending a detention hearing.
He also had outstanding warrants out of Totowa and Garfield that had to be settled.
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