Krispy Kreme doughnuts may be hugely addictive, but gorging on them alone in your car doesn’t make you a criminal. Just ask Daniel Rushing, the Florida man who’s suing the city of Orlando after police mistook dried doughnut glaze on his vehicle’s floorboard for crystal meth and arrested him.
Rushing, who is seeking $15,000 in damages, also named the manufacturer of the drug test that somehow mistook the icing for hardcore street drugs. To make matters worse, Rushing claims that he pleaded with the arresting officer, eight-year veteran Cpl. Shelby Riggs-Hopkins. “I said, ‘It’s icing from a doughnut!’” he told a local newspaper.
The routine traffic stop occurred last year in late December, after Rushing failed to come to a complete stop before pulling out of a 7-Eleven parking lot, where he was presumably getting his sugar fix. When Riggs-Hopkins searched his vehicle, she found “a rock like substance on the floor,” according to her report. In his suit filed last week, Rushing claims that someone with Riggs-Hopkins’ experience should have been able to tell the difference between donut glaze and crystal meth.
“Every other Wednesday, I get a glazed doughnut from Krispy Kreme,” he added. “(Police) found four little pieces of icing on the floorboard, which I’m kind of embarrassed about because I should have, you know, vacuumed the car better.” After a crime lab test revealed the officer’s mistake, Rushing was released from jail and the charges were quickly dropped.
While the whole experience sounds pretty traumatizing, let’s face it: 15 grand buys you a whole lot of doughnuts. Worth it.
