A Florida man received a $37,500 settlement after police arrested him, mistaking Krispy Kreme doughnut glaze in his car for meth.
A series of roadside drug tests yielded positive results for the street drug, landing him in jail for ten hours.
But another test determined it was only glaze from a Krispy Kreme doughnut.
Dan Rushing, 65, was arrested in December 2015 following a traffic stop after Orlando cop Cpl. Shelby Riggs-Hopkins observed flakes on his floorboard, which she first suspected was crack, then crystal meth.
Rushing insisted to officers it was sugar from Krispy Kreme doughnuts he’d eaten.
‘I kept telling them, “That’s … glaze from a doughnut… They tried to say it was crack cocaine at first, then they said, “No, it’s meth, crystal meth,”, he told the Orlando Sentinel.
But the field test’s positive result landed Rushing in jail for 10 hours before he was able to post his $2,500 bond after being charged with possession of a methamphetamine as well as possession of a firearm.
It took a second, more thorough, test conducted by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to show the flakes on his floorboard was sugar – not meth.
In Riggs-Hopkins arrest report, she wrote he noticed a “rock like substance” on the floorboard of Rushing’s car and, through several years of experience in law enforcement recognized the substance as some sort of narcotic.
“I recognized through my eleven years of training and experience as a law enforcement officer the substance to be some sort of narcotic,” she explained in her arrest report.
Rushing, who sued the field test manufacturer along with the department and city, said officer Riggs-Hopkins should have waited for the FDLE tested the substance before she arrested him.
She received a written reprimand for arresting Rushing, but the Orlando Police Department found no evidence she acted in bad faith, according to the Sentinel.
After the debacle, Orlando police trained more than 700 officers on how to properly use the field-test kids.
Rushing, however told the Sentinel the arrest has made it challenging for him to move forward.
“I haven’t been able to work,” he explained.
“People go online and see that you’ve been arrested.”
Now, Rushing told the Sentinel, he still treats himself to a Krispy Kreme doughnut once a week, but no longer eats in his car.
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