The City of Orlando paid $37,500 to a man to settle a lawsuit after police officers arrested him for what they thought was meth but was actually tiny flakes of glaze from a Krispy Kreme doughnut.
Daniel Rushing sued the city after a field test incorrectly showed he had drugs and he was arrested and taken to jail.
He received the check in the mail last week, he said.
Rushing said he was pleased with the outcome and hopes he can get his record expunged.
He said he’s been trying to start a security business, but to no avail.
“I haven’t been able to work,” Rushing said. “People go online and see that you’ve been arrested.”
The city declined to comment on the case Thursday.
Orlando police officers pulled him over in 2015 after police say he failed to come to a full stop before pulling out of a 7-Eleven store on West Colonial Drive. Police had been watching the store because of complaints about drug activity, according to an internal affairs report.
Cpl. Shelby Riggs-Hopkins wrote in an arrest report that she saw “a rock-like substance on the floor board where his feet were.”
She did a series of roadside tests; they came back positive for an illegal substance.
Officers said it was meth and took Rushing to jail on a possession of methamphetamine with a firearm charge where he spent 10 hours before posting $2,500 bond.
Another test, this time performed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, determined it was sugar from the doughnut.
Orlando police ended up training more than 730 officers on how to properly use the field test kits.
Riggs-Hopkins was given a written reprimand for making an improper arrest.
Rushing, 65, said the arrest made him feel like a criminal.
“I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “I’ve never even smoked a cigarette before, let alone meth.”
Rushing, who retired after 25 years with the City of Orlando Parks Department, said he still goes to Krispy Kreme to get a glazed doughnut every other Wednesday.
He just doesn’t eat it in his car.
dharris@orlandosentinel.com, 407-420-5471 or @DavidHarrisOS
Rushing, 64, a retired city employee, had just left a 7-Eleven on West Colonial Drive when an Orlando police officer pulled him over. When she looked inside the car, Officer Shelby Riggs-Hopkins spotted something suspicious on the floorboard pieces of a âEUR rock-likeâEUR substance. She conducted a field drug test. The results: methamphetamine. She handcuffed Rushing and took him to jail. Turns out the âEUR methamphetamineâEUR were pieces of glaze that had fallen off a Krispie Kreme Doughnut.
(Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel)
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