He Ate a Krispy Kreme in His Car. Now He's $37K Richer

(Newser) - Good Samaritan takes a friend to chemo: check. Good Samaritan drives a fellow churchgoer home: check. Good Samaritan arrested and jailed for having crystal meth in his car that turned out to be flakes from a doughnut: Wait, what? This all happened in one day to Daniel Rushing in Orlando in December 2015, and NPR reports the 65-year-old now has a $37,500 settlement from the city after he sued them. Rushing was leaving a 7-Eleven (one being monitored by cops for drug activity, per the Orlando Sentinel) with his church friend when he was pulled over for speeding and another minor infraction; the police officer noticed he had a concealed-weapons permit, confirmed he had a pistol on him, and asked him to step out of the car. He agreed to let his car be searched, and when officers spotted crystals on the floor and tested them, they came up positive for methamphetamine.

"I've never even smoked a cigarette!" he told cops, explaining it was just Krispy Kreme residue, but he was arrested on charges of meth possession while armed and thrown in jail, where he sat for 10 hours before making bail. NPR reports that the cheap drug-testing kits that law enforcement rely on in the field are often inaccurate: A 2016 ProPublica-New York Times probe found false positives often emerge from these kits, with 21% of evidence wrongly determined by Florida cops to be meth. The results of these kits can be marred by everything from weather to human error. In Rushing's case, the cops weren't trained correctly in using the kits, per WHAS. Rushing has no hard feelings and says his goal now is to get his arrest wiped: He's trying to get security work and having a hard time due to his record.

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