Police confuse Buckeye logo with pot icon

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COLUMBUS, Ohio, Feb. 16 (UPI) -- A Texas woman said police in Tennessee detained her because they thought the Ohio State University Buckeye logo on her car was a "marijuana sticker."

Bonnie Jonas-Boggioni, 65, of Plano, Texas, told The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch she and her 66-year-old husband were driving near Memphis Feb. 4 when police in a black sport utility vehicle pulled them over, and then a second black SUV pulled behind the first.

Jonas-Boggioni said she hadn't been speeding so she wondered why police were pulling her over.

"They were very serious," she said. "They had the body armor and the guns."

One of the officers asked her, "What are you doing with a marijuana sticker on your bumper?"

Jonas-Boggioni, a longtime Buckeyes fan who grew up in Columbus -- and is president of the Ohio State Alumni Club in the Dallas-Fort Worth area -- told the officer what the decal actually represents but she said he didn't seem to get it.

"He looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language," she said.

Jonas-Boggioni's husband, Guido, 66, got out of the car to show the police his sweatshirt -- an item from Ohio State's 2002 national-championship season, sporting a Buckeye leaf.

One of the officers said someone outside his jurisdiction had seen the logo on Jonas-Boggiono's car and thought it might mean the car was carrying pot, the Dispatch said.

"It's just amazing they would be that dumb," said.

A West Tennessee Drug Task Force spokeswoman said a decal is not sufficient cause to detain a motorist. The Tennessee Highway Patrol and the Shelby County sheriff's office in Memphis had no record of the stop.