Police mistake glaze from doughnuts for crystal meth...

[DrDoug]

“I recognized through my eleven years of training and experience as a law enforcement officer the substance to be some sort of narcotic,” she wrote.

It's a sad day in America when cops confuse doughnut glaze for crystal meth. Be forewarned that the doughnut glaze that flaked off of the doughnut you are eating in your car can now get you locked up.

But don't worry, Orlando police say the arrest was lawful so everything is OK.

 

[Victorian Gray]

This is truly priceless:

"When Rushing opened his wallet, she saw that he had a concealed weapons permit, she wrote. He told her that he had a gun, and she asked him to step out of his car, a small Chevy.

That's when she spotted "a rock like substance on the floor board where his feet were," she wrote.

"I recognized through my eleven years of training and experience as a law enforcement officer the substance to be some sort of narcotic," she wrote."

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news...k-doughnut-glaze-for-meth-20160727-story.html

 

[Pardus]

This is why I have no respect for law enforcement, they think they do whatever they want and get away with it even when they are completely wrong. The good news is, Rushing will get a big payout as this is the stuff lawyer's dream of.

 

[Puffnstuff]

This is what happens when you give people who barely passed high school a badge and a gun.

 

[Exterous]

Two roadside drug tests were positive for the illegal substance and Rushing was arrested.

So either those tests are shit and shouldn't be used anymore or the officer had no idea what she was doing. If its the first one then I feel bad for the officer and the dept.

 

[NesuD]

Cops are morons but the guy should never have consented to a search of his car. First rule of traffic stop never consent to a search. He consented so he can't even attempt to argue illegal search. In a traffic stop never answer questions, never consent to a search, and always keep your hands on the steering wheel.

 

[Linux23]

Cops are morons but the guy should never have consented to a search of his car. First rule of traffic stop never consent to a search. He consented so he can't even attempt to argue illegal search. In a traffic stop never answer questions, never consent to a search, and always keep your hands on the steering wheel.

And if you're black and do all of that then you still get shot.

 

[dank69]

I though cops were doughnut experts?

 

[soulcougher73]

It's a sad day in America when cops confuse doughnut glaze for crystal meth. Be forewarned that the doughnut glaze that flaked off of the doughnut you are eating in your car can now get you locked up.

But don't worry, Orlando police say the arrest was lawful so everything is OK.

It is a narcotic. It is like crack to cops

 

[hal2kilo]

This is why I have no respect for law enforcement, they think they do whatever they want and get away with it even when they are completely wrong. The good news is, Rushing will get a big payout as this is the stuff lawyer's dream of.

Blame the SCOTUS for their ridiculous rulings on search and seizure over the last 15 years or so.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I though cops were doughnut experts?

Sir did you not know that they require the glaze to be attached to the physical doughnut in order to validate the substance? Detached glaze, for the sake of this conversation we'll refer to it as "glaze excrement", is not physical enough evidence and requires immediate abusing actions against the person possessing it. Seriously though I suppose the next time the cop will empty their magazine into the person claiming they were about to assault them with a hardened and less than fresh doughnut.

 

[Jaskalas]

Sir did you not know that they require the glaze to be attached to the physical doughnut in order to validate the substance? Detached glaze, for the sake of this conversation we'll refer to it as "glaze excrement", is not physical enough evidence and requires immediate abusing actions against the person possessing it. Seriously though I suppose the next time the cop will empty their magazine into the person claiming they were about to assault them with a hardened and less than fresh doughnut.

He had a concealed carry. Just say he was reaching.

 

[dank69]

Sir did you not know that they require the glaze to be attached to the physical doughnut in order to validate the substance? Detached glaze, for the sake of this conversation we'll refer to it as "glaze excrement", is not physical enough evidence and requires immediate abusing actions against the person possessing it. Seriously though I suppose the next time the cop will empty their magazine into the person claiming they were about to assault them with a hardened and less than fresh doughnut.

Any cop worth his/her salt can identify doughnut glaze from 50 yards by smell alone. She needs some serious retraining.

 

[Meghan54]

Not only was the initial cop's training and experience not worth a damn:

“I recognized through my eleven years of training and experience as a law enforcement officer the substance to be some sort of narcotic,” she wrote.

(Wrong.)


This is even more troubling:

Two roadside drug tests were positive for the illegal substance and Rushing was arrested.

Kinda makes one wonder how the heck a test for meth shows positive when pure sugar is tested....almost as if it doesn't matter what's tested, the test will show positive, thereby ensuring an arrest. Well, if you were a conspiracy theorist it might be interesting........

 

[Moonbeam]

I problem I see is how a cop who spends its days among camel bones is going to recognize a camel when he or she sees one. Just look at the contempt that is forming on this forum for cops. They have all become a bunch of uneducated doughnut eaters. Way to go criticizing what you have become.

The issue is real, the reaction to it ineffectual and counterproductive.

 

[Jaskalas]

The issue is real, the reaction to it ineffectual and counterproductive.

The response is that the war on drugs is BS and needs to be dismantled and rebuilt to focus on supply.
Users should be treated as the weak victims they are, not preyed upon by a prison system.
Not railroaded into false positives or abused during stop and searches.

 

[woolfe9998]

Kinda makes one wonder how the heck a test for meth shows positive when pure sugar is tested....almost as if it doesn't matter what's tested, the test will show positive, thereby ensuring an arrest. Well, if you were a conspiracy theorist it might be interesting........

The roadside drug test part stood out for me as well, so I did some Googling. NYT exposee on roadside drug tests just two weeks ago:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/m...-drug-test-sends-innocent-people-to-jail.html

Key explanation:

The field tests seem simple, but a lot can go wrong. Some tests, including the one the Houston police officers used to analyze the crumb on the floor of Albritton’s car, use a single tube of a chemical called cobalt thiocyanate, which turns blue when it is exposed to cocaine. But cobalt thiocyanate also turns blue when it is exposed to more than 80 other compounds, including methadone, certain acne medications and several common household cleaners. Other tests use three tubes, which the officer can break in a specific order to rule out everything but the drug in question — but if the officer breaks the tubes in the wrong order, that, too, can invalidate the results. The environment can also present problems. Cold weather slows the color development; heat speeds it up, or sometimes prevents a color reaction from taking place at all. Poor lighting on the street — flashing police lights, sun glare, street lamps — often prevents officers from making the fine distinctions that could make the difference between an arrest and a release.

There are no established error rates for the field tests, in part because their accuracy varies so widely depending on who is using them and how. Data from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement lab system show that 21 percent of evidence that the police listed as methamphetamine after identifying it was not methamphetamine, and half of those false positives were not any kind of illegal drug at all. In one notable Florida episode, Hillsborough County sheriff’s deputies produced 15 false positives for methamphetamine in the first seven months of 2014. When we examined the department’s records, they showed that officers, faced with somewhat ambiguous directions on the pouches, had simply misunderstood which colors indicated a positive result.

So there's two versions of this test, one which is easy to administer but is wildly inaccurate, and another which is more accurate but easier for the police to screw up.

Anyway, the article is a worth a read. Huge numbers of wrongful convictions from this.

 

[hal2kilo]

The response is that the war on drugs is BS and needs to be dismantled and rebuilt to focus on supply.
Users should be treated as the weak victims they are, not preyed upon by a prison system.
Not railroaded into false positives or abused during stop and searches.

How about anything past your window needs a search warrant.

 

[EOM]

This is what happens when you give people who barely passed high school a badge and a gun.

and then inflate their ego with a false sense of authority.

 

[EOM]

Not only was the initial cop's training and experience not worth a damn:

(Wrong.)


This is even more troubling:




Kinda makes one wonder how the heck a test for meth shows positive when pure sugar is tested....almost as if it doesn't matter what's tested, the test will show positive, thereby ensuring an arrest. Well, if you were a conspiracy theorist it might be interesting........

Roadside drug tests mark positive for almost anything other than Ph balanced water. And the "drug dogs" are a joke too, they're trained to find drug scents at the command of their handler.

 

[woolfe9998]

The thing about these roadside drug tests is I suspect that they are often ruled inadmissible when a case goes to trial because they aren't scientifically reliable enough. That's why they do a real lab test after the arrest. It's very similar to what happens with DUI's. They use something called a PAS (Preliminary Alcohol Screening) on the scene, which is basically a portable breathalizer, and if the suspect blows at the legal limit or higher, they have probable cause for an arrest, then at the station after the arrest they use a test that is more reliable. So basically the point of the PAS test is just to establish probable cause so they can conduct the better test. Probably the same with these roadside drug tests.

What shocked me about the story I linked is this woman gets arrested after a crumb found in her car tests positive for cocaine in the roadside test. She insists that she is innocent, that it is a chunk of over-the-counter pain reliever, like Excedrin. After the arrest her lawyer tells her she will get 2 years if she fights it, but only 45 days if she pleads guilty. She tearfully pleads guilty to a felony, then serves 45 days. All the while the "crumb" sits in a lab somewhere waiting for some technician to test it which doesn't happen until months after she finishes her sentence. After she's convicted and loses her job, has to move, life is ruined, 6 months later she is informed by the New York Times who was investigating the lab that the real test showed that the crumb really was an OTC pain reliever with caffeine. Apparently this happens all the time.

Moral of the story: do not ever plead guilty based on the results of one of these roadside tests. Wait for the results of the real test, then decide.

 

[Moonbeam]

The thing about these roadside drug tests is I suspect that they are often ruled inadmissible when a case goes to trial because they aren't scientifically reliable enough. That's why they do a real lab test after the arrest. It's very similar to what happens with DUI's. They use something called a PAS (Preliminary Alcohol Screening) on the scene, which is basically a portable breathalizer, and if the suspect blows at the legal limit or higher, they have probable cause for an arrest, then at the station after the arrest they use a test that is more reliable. So basically the point of the PAS test is just to establish probable cause so they can conduct the better test. Probably the same with these roadside drug tests.

What shocked me about the story I linked is this woman gets arrested after a crumb found in her car tests positive for cocaine in the roadside test. She insists that she is innocent, that it is a chunk of over-the-counter pain reliever, like Excedrin. After the arrest her lawyer tells her she will get 2 years if she fights it, but only 45 days if she pleads guilty. She tearfully pleads guilty to a felony, then serves 45 days. All the while the "crumb" sits in a lab somewhere waiting for some technician to test it which doesn't happen until months after she finishes her sentence. After she's convicted and loses her job, has to move, life is ruined, 6 months later she is informed by the New York Times who was investigating the lab that the real test showed that the crumb really was an OTC pain reliever with caffeine. Apparently this happens all the time.

Moral of the story: do not ever plead guilty based on the results of one of these roadside tests. Wait for the results of the real test, then decide.

I wish that were the moral I took from this.

 

[Victorian Gray]

So either those tests are shit and shouldn't be used anymore or the officer had no idea what she was doing. If its the first one then I feel bad for the officer and the dept.

Why would you feel badly for someone as stupid as that officer?

"I recognized through my eleven years of training and experience as a law enforcement officer the substance to be some sort of narcotic"

 

[The Merg]

Roadside drug tests mark positive for almost anything other than Ph balanced water. And the "drug dogs" are a joke too, they're trained to find drug scents at the command of their handler.

Yup. That's how drug dogs work. They just indicate on the car whenever their handler tells them too... </s>


- Merg

Today's problems don't worry me,
I haven't solved yesterday's yet.

 

[The Merg]

The thing about these roadside drug tests is I suspect that they are often ruled inadmissible when a case goes to trial because they aren't scientifically reliable enough. That's why they do a real lab test after the arrest. It's very similar to what happens with DUI's. They use something called a PAS (Preliminary Alcohol Screening) on the scene, which is basically a portable breathalizer, and if the suspect blows at the legal limit or higher, they have probable cause for an arrest, then at the station after the arrest they use a test that is more reliable. So basically the point of the PAS test is just to establish probable cause so they can conduct the better test. Probably the same with these roadside drug tests.

What shocked me about the story I linked is this woman gets arrested after a crumb found in her car tests positive for cocaine in the roadside test. She insists that she is innocent, that it is a chunk of over-the-counter pain reliever, like Excedrin. After the arrest her lawyer tells her she will get 2 years if she fights it, but only 45 days if she pleads guilty. She tearfully pleads guilty to a felony, then serves 45 days. All the while the "crumb" sits in a lab somewhere waiting for some technician to test it which doesn't happen until months after she finishes her sentence. After she's convicted and loses her job, has to move, life is ruined, 6 months later she is informed by the New York Times who was investigating the lab that the real test showed that the crumb really was an OTC pain reliever with caffeine. Apparently this happens all the time.

Moral of the story: do not ever plead guilty based on the results of one of these roadside tests. Wait for the results of the real test, then decide.

You're pretty much on the mark there. The field test kits are only to establish probable cause. For a trial, the field tests are not admissible. In VA, they recently allowed field test results from possession of marijuana cases, but for any other cases you need the lab test for court. The reason for that was because the state lab was getting overloaded with testing requests for drug related cases.


- Merg

Today's problems don't worry me,
I haven't solved yesterday's yet.