According to the Orlando Sentinel, he’s suing the city and the company that made the road-side drug testing kit:
Cpl. Shelby Riggs-Hopkins pulled over Rushing in December while he was driving near Robinson Street and Parramore Avenue because he was speeding and failed to come to a full stop, according to a police report.
During the stop, she spotted a “a rock like substance on the floor” near his feet and asked to search his vehicle, records show.
Riggs-Hopkins used a roadside drug kit produced by Safariland, which has headquarters in Jacksonville and Ontario, Calif., to test the substance twice. Both times it showed it was methamphetamine, police said.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement tested the substance several weeks later and cleared him.
In the suit, Rushing says Riggs-Hopkins, an eight-year department veteran, is not properly trained to use drug-testing kits.
He also alleges she should have known that doughnut glaze was not meth and should have known the kits can be unreliable. Rushing says the officer should have waited until the FDLE tested the substance before arresting him.
The city of Orlando and Safariland would not comment on the pending litigation.
