Man Who Was Arrested After Cops Mistook Doughnut Glaze for Meth Awarded $37,500

The arrest happened in 2015.

A Florida man has received $37,500 after cops arrested him when they mistook doughnut glaze for meth. 

In 2015, Orlando police officers pulled over Daniel Rushing, 65, for speeding out of the parking lot of a 7-Eleven that they had been monitoring due to several drug complaints. 

Read: Cop Punished After Mistaking 65-Year-old Man's Doughnut Leftovers for Meth

An officer arrested Rushing when she spotted a “rocky, white substance” on the floor of his car, but Rushing insisted to officers that it was not drugs.

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

Cpl. Shelby Riggs-Hopkins reportedly administered a series of roadside drug tests, which the officers had not been trained properly to use. Two of them turned up positive for cocaine.

Rushing was strip-searched and spent hours in jail before being released on $2,500 bond, the New York Daily News Reported. 

When lab tests came back, however, it turned out that Rushing was telling the truth. The crumbs had been glaze from a doughnut.

Riggs-Hopkins resigned a week later after being reprimanded.

Rushing sued over the incident and a settlement was reached, with the City of Orlando agreeing to pay him $37,500 for the wrongful arrest, reports said. 

He told the Orlando Sentinel that he hasn’t been able to get a job since his false arrest.

Read: Cop Who Manhandled Nurse and Dragged Her From ER Gets Fired

“I haven’t been able to work,” Rushing said. “People go online and see that you’ve been arrested.”

Rushing, however, hasn’t let the experience affect his love of doughnuts, telling the paper that he still goes to Krispy Kreme to get a glazed doughnut every other Wednesday. He just doesn't eat it in the car. 

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