Florida Man Awarded $37,500 After Cops Mistake Glazed Doughnut Crumbs For Meth

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In December 2015, 64-year-old Daniel Rushing had just dropped off a friend at chemotherapy and was driving home an older woman from his church who worked at the 7-Eleven and would otherwise walk the 2 miles home.

As Rushing drove away from the convenience store, police pulled him over. The officer said he had been driving 42 miles an hour in a 30 zone and had failed to come to a complete stop before entering the roadway. When Rushing handed over his driver's license, Officer Shelby Riggs-Hopkins noticed his concealed-weapons permit. Rushing confirmed he had a pistol, and she asked him to step out of the car for her safety.

The officer then asked if police could search his car, and Rushing said sure — if it meant he wouldn't be ticketed. Rushing watched as the officers, who now numbered four, conducted a very thorough inspection of his car.

Finally, Riggs-Hopkins said to him, "You want to tell me about what we found?"

"There's nothing to find," he said, confused.

But Riggs-Hopkins had noticed some crystals on the floorboard of the car, and when officers used a field testing kit, the white substance tested positive for methamphetamine.

Rushing said that was impossible: "I've never even smoked a cigarette," he protested.

The officer showed him the substance in question, and Rushing was aghast.

"That's glaze from a Krispy Kreme doughnut!" he explained. "I get one every other Wednesday."

But officers weren't buying it. Rushing was booked on charges of possessing methamphetamine while armed with a weapon.

As he sat in jail, he asked himself, "Lord, what am I doing here?"

"It was funny," Rushing says, "because I called my wife to tell her what happened, and the guy next to me waiting for the phone started to laugh. He said, 'This is crazy. I think you got a real good lawsuit here.' "

He spent more than 10 hours in jail before being released on bail.

Orlando police sent the evidence it had collected from Rushing's car to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for further testing — which determined that just as he'd said, the white crystals were not a controlled substance. (Results did not indicate whether the substance was sweet and delicious.)

All charges against Rushing were dropped.

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