Daniel J. Nicksic left St. Thomas More School in the back of a police car Wednesday, under arrest for cocaine possession.
Nicksic, 29, was taken into custody after students had left for the day and was "very cooperative" with police officers who arrested him on a warrant for possession of a controlled substance, Hammond Police Chief Brian Miller said. "
I'm very saddened," said Principal Chet Nordyke on Wednesday. "We had no idea (about the charges). He was a nice guy."
Nicksic was found with a small quantity of what appeared to be cocaine in his car during a Sept. 7 traffic stop in the 4300 block of Cameron, Miller said.
Nicksic had joined the faculty at St. Thomas only a week earlier, Nordyke said, and a background check conducted before he was hired by the diocese showed no prior criminal record.
Nicksic previously worked as a substitute in Hammond.
He was not formally charged until Wednesday, as prosecutors had to wait for the State Police crime lab to complete tests on the drugs confiscated at the scene.
Nicksic's laid-back attitude put off some parents, though it made him popular with students, said several St. Thomas More parents, who declined to give their names.
"I'm not surprised," said one father with two children enrolled. "The guy was from a different planet. My kids didn't like him much. He was always going off somewhere to smoke cigarettes and drinking Red Bull (energy drinks). "He was a goofball."
Nordyke convened a meeting with staff members after Nicksic was led out of the building.
"We prayed for him and his family, and also for our school and students," he said
