Allen Gruver

ZELIENOPLE — A suspected duster huffing addict passed out Tuesday night on Main Street. An hour later, Zelienople police found the man passed out again, this time behind a store on Main Street.

When police arrested the suspect, 42-year-old Allen M. Gruver, was still holding a can of compressed gas duster.

He later was arraigned on a half dozen criminal charges and placed in the Butler County Prison until he sobered up.

Police were called shortly before 8:30 p.m. for a report of an unconscious man on North Main Street near the Citizens Bank branch.

By the time officers found Gruver, he was close by but now standing in a business parking lot near his apartment with a canister of duster in his hand.

Gruver admitted he had no recollection of lying on the road. But he acknowledged he was “having personal issues and was now abusing gas duster,” a police affidavit said.

That kind of duster, which is used to clean computer equipment, actually contains a liquified gas.

The suspect told police that he “easily uses” a full can of duster every day.

Officers helped him to his apartment and told him he would be receiving charges in the mail.

But by 9:30 p.m., police again saw Gruver after they were called for an unresponsive man behind the Walgreens drugstore on South Main Street.

They got there and found him kneeling behind a sign in the bank parking lot “actively inhaling a can of gas duster,” police said.

This time, police took him to the prison.

He is charged with two counts each of inhaling toxic-releasing substances, disorderly conduct, and loitering and prowling at night, all misdemeanors. Police also cited him for two summary counts of public drunkenness.

Gruver, after sleeping it off, was released from the county prison Wednesday on his own recognizance.