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Florida man arrested when police confuse doughnut glaze for meth

By Ben Hooper
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ORLANDO, Fla., July 28 (UPI) -- A Florida man, arrested when police found suspected crystal meth on his floorboard, was cleared weeks later when the substance was revealed as doughnut glaze.

The police report of the Dec. 11 incident in Orlando says an officer staking out a 7-Eleven store for suspected drug activity pulled over Daniel Rushing, 64, after he left the store for failing to make a complete stop before pulling out of the parking lot and driving 42 mph in a 30 mph zone.

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Cpl. Shelby Riggs-Hopkins, an eight-year veteran of the department, wrote she asked Rushing to exit his vehicle when she noticed a concealed carry permit in his wallet and he confirmed that he had a gun.

The officer took note of "a rock like substance on the floor board where his feet were."

"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.

Rushing consented to a search of his car and officers found three more pieces of the suspicious substance, which the driver identified to police as glaze from a Krispy Kreme doughnut.

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"I kept telling them, 'That's ... glaze from a doughnut. ... They tried to say it was crack cocaine at first, then they said, 'No, it's meth, crystal meth,'" Rushing told the Orlando Sentinel.

The police report confirms Rushing told the officers it was doughnut glaze.

Officers conducted two roadside tests that came back positive for illegal substances, and then proceeded to take Rushing to the county jail on a methamphetamine possession charge, where they strip searched him and after about 10 hours, released him on $2,500 bail.

The charges were dropped several weeks later when a Florida Department of Law Enforcement crime lab confirmed Rushing had been telling officers the truth.

Rushing has hired attorney William Ruffier to seek damages from the city.

"I just don't want this to happen to anybody else," Rushing told WFTV.

"I got arrested for no reason at all," he said.

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