Man arrested for doughnut glaze mistaken as meth

Police officer 'tried to say it was crack cocaine at first'

ORLANDO, Fla. – Daniel Rushing's only crime had been eating a Krispy Kreme doughnut. But a pair of police officers who were investigating drug activity at a 7-Eleven pulled him over and arrested him anyway.

Orlando Cpl. Shelby Riggs-Hopkins said she stopped him because he failed to come to a full stop before pulling out of the convenience store. And she arrested him, because she spotted "a rock like substance on the floor board where his feet were."

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Riggs-Hopkins, a veteran, identified it as crystal meth and arrested him on possession of methamphetamine with a firearm. He had a concealed weapons permit. He was released on a $2,500 bond.

A Florida Department of Law Enforcement crime lab analyst would later determine it wasn't meth.  It was sugar. The drug field tests were wrong and the charge was dropped. 

"I kept telling them, 'That's ... glaze from a doughnut' ... They tried to say it was crack cocaine at first," Rushing said during a recent interview with The Orlando Sentinel. "Then they said, 'No, it's meth, crystal meth.' " 

The Orlando Sentinel reported Rushing filed a lawsuit against the city asking for damages due to  the December 2015 incident. 


About the Author:

The Emmy Award-winning journalist joined the Local 10 News team in 2013. She wrote for the Miami Herald for more than 9 years and won a Green Eyeshade Award.