Orlando police officer resigns after mistakening donut glaze for meth

An Orlando police officer who thought donut glaze was meth has been disciplined.

Channel 9 learned late Friday that Orlando Police Corporal Shelby Riggs-Hopkins resigned because of the incident.

Riggs-Hopkins was never trained to test narcotics before she arrested Dan Rushing in July 2016 on methamphetamine charges.

At the time, Rushing even insisted the substance was sugar.

“I said, ‘That’s icing from a Krispy Kreme glazed donut and they went, ‘No, that’s drugs,’” Rushing told Channel 9 in October 2016.

According to a new report, Riggs-Hopkins was reprimanded after an investigation showed she acted in good faith, but improperly conducted parts of the drug test.

Police said two of the three tests were positive. But in the end, the crime lab found no drugs.

Law enforcement consultant Chuck Drago told Channel 9’s Michael Lopardi that a field test can be wrong, which is why officers should look for additional evidence to justify an arrest. “Something that would give some indication that this might be a drug.”

Drago also said a supervisor should have questioned the arrest report.

Prosecutors eventually dropped the drug charge against Rushing, who has filed a lawsuit against the city of Orlando.

Riggs-Hopkins later received training on how to conduct the drug tests.

In the wake of this case, Orlando police ordered that every officer in the department take a review course on the field drug tests and pass a follow-up exam.

Watch Rushing's interview with Channel 9 from October 2016:

Cox Media Group