Why are they using field drug tests that give false positives?

Why is there no accountability/penalties for arresting someone for carrying cheese?

IBT respect the law/always trust cops/dont worry if you have done nothing wrong

http://www.wral.com/news/state/story/9597033/

Quote :

"ASHEVILLE, N.C. — An enzyme found in cheese triggered false drug test results that led Buncombe County deputies to think a man with 91 pounds of tortilla dough was actually carrying that much cocaine, the sheriff said. Antonio Hernandez spent four days in jail in Asheville earlier this month before tests by a state lab came back showing he was carrying food instead of drugs. A deputy stopped Hernandez on May 1 and found what turned out to be a mix of cheese, shrimp and tortilla and tamale dough in his truck. A portable kit used by deputies changed colors, indicating the mixture was illegal drugs. Buncombe County Sheriff Van Duncan said he didn't know until this case that some foods, like cheese, can give false positives on field drug tests. He plans to have his officers talk to the company that makes the tests. "What we are going to do now is check with the manufacturers and find out what they have found can cause false positives and put that into the training with our officers," Duncan told the Asheville Citizen-Times. Officials at the state lab said they have seen false positive drug test results from food before, but it is rare. Hernandez's arrest angered Latino groups, who said he was targeted because of his race. He came to the United States in 1985 to harvest grapes and strawberries and became a legal resident four years later. He currently works for a carpet cleaning company in Carson, Calif., and was taking vacation to drive across the country and see his sister in Johnson City, Tenn., for the first time in nearly a decade. But Hernandez missed a turn and ended up in Asheville. He told the newspaper through an interpreter that he saw steam coming from his truck and pulled over. A deputy approached, and Hernandez thought the officer wanted him to move and drove away with his hazard lights on. Officers thought he was trying to flee and punctured his tires. The sheriff's office is writing Hernandez a $400 check to cover the food he lost when deputies thought it was drugs. But Hernandez said that isn't enough to also cover other expenses like the impound fee for his truck. "That doesn't pay economically for what I lost," he said. "That doesn't pay for my tires.""

5/14/2011 8:27:58 PM

Quote :

"Officials at the state lab said they have seen false positive drug test results from food before, but it is rare."

Is this the same state lab that routinely hid exculpatory test results?

5/14/2011 8:30:01 PM

if only there was a system to punish people who make mistakes

I'm AstralAdvent and i approved this message.

5/14/2011 8:30:29 PM

Quote :

"The sheriff's office is writing Hernandez a $400 check to cover the food he lost when deputies thought it was drugs. But Hernandez said that isn't enough to also cover other expenses like the impound fee for his truck. "That doesn't pay economically for what I lost," he said. "That doesn't pay for my tires."""

that is pretty fucked up.

5/14/2011 8:30:57 PM

91 pounds of cocaine in Buncombe County?!?!?

AHAHAHA


AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

5/14/2011 8:32:49 PM

Cocaine Tortilla Cheese is a hell of a drug!

5/14/2011 8:34:06 PM

Quote :

"Hernandez thought the officer wanted him to move and drove away with his hazard lights on"

why would you do that? all his problems are because of that mistake right there

5/14/2011 9:21:25 PM

It did not say he sped away....he could have been trying to get out of the way. Sometimes if you pull over too close to the flow of traffic the cop will want you to move up and over so as not to get creamed by a semi.

Also he pulled over due to his car leaking steam...he was not actually stopped by the police, so it sort of makes sense how that could have been confusing.

5/14/2011 9:54:50 PM

Quote :

"Why are they using field drug tests that give false positives? Why is there no accountability/penalties for arresting someone for carrying cheese?"

1- I don't know, because we don't live in a perfect world.

2- I don't know, because we don't live in a perfect world.

I apologize if these were trolling questions, I'm too drunk to know the difference.

[Edited on May 14, 2011 at 10:09 PM. Reason : d]

5/14/2011 10:07:24 PM

dat drug war

5/14/2011 10:14:56 PM

i would like to know what the probable cause was for even approaching him, much less destroying his tires. being hispanic isn't a crime, last time i checked

[Edited on May 14, 2011 at 10:21 PM. Reason : ]

5/14/2011 10:21:11 PM

^ seriously?

probable cause deals with detainment, search and seizure.

The article says that the cop approaches him as he was on the side of the road with steam coming from his engine. He might have just be trying to see what was up.... and he has every right to.

Then the guy just drove off in an obviously troubled car when the cop approached....


That alone is probable cause.


I sear to god, you can't fucking win as a cop.

5/14/2011 10:28:09 PM

yeah, the guy drove off WITH HIS HAZARDS ON. as in, doesn't look like he is fleeing

5/14/2011 10:30:26 PM

driving away from a cop who is approaching you looks like fleeing no matter what lights you have on or how fast you are going

5/14/2011 10:33:29 PM

aaaaand did the cop then put on his lights and try to pull the guy over? or did he just start going rambo on the guy and shoot his tires out. what I see is miscommunication, not a reason to shoot someone's tires out

[Edited on May 14, 2011 at 10:35 PM. Reason : ]

5/14/2011 10:34:14 PM

I'm not saying that busting his tires was appropriate.

But a cop has the right to "approach" whomever they want to.

The article doesn't say, but if the cop came out of his car and was approaching the truck, then a sudden drive off is really fucking suspicious.

And if the cop was still in the car and he drove away, how were the tires punctured? I have to imagine that the guy drove a while without pulling over if a spike strip was used....

and if he shot out the tires, well that is fucked up.

5/14/2011 10:34:43 PM

Iif you are using some ragged ass "field test kit" as a basis for arresting someone on felony charges and impounding their vehicle you should at least know what could cause a false positive.

People have a right to not be arrested without probable cause and an inaccurate field test or officers that are ignorant of the limitations of a field test should not be enough to lock a guy up.

5/14/2011 10:34:52 PM

Quote :

" But a cop has the right to "approach" whomever they want to. "

i'm not sure if that is the case, but ok...

5/14/2011 10:35:51 PM

Someone living in this country since 1985 should fucking know that if a cop approaches you, you don't walk/run/etc. the fuck away.

The guys response was very abnormal, and the results should have been expected (obviously not the faulty dug testing)


Honestly not trying to be smug, but I am a lawyer. Just as anyone has the right to "approach" another person in a public environment, so does a cop.





[Edited on May 14, 2011 at 10:40 PM. Reason : d]

5/14/2011 10:38:17 PM

^^ are you fucking retarded? As a citizen I can walk up to whomever I want for any reason but if put a badge on, you think I'm supposed to be legally restricted? What, you think cops are supposed to stop when they're 50' away and yell "excuse me sir, may I please approach you?". Please tell me you're actually a high-school dropout and not a product of our state's university system.

5/14/2011 10:44:55 PM

Quote :

"Iif you are using some ragged ass "field test kit" as a basis for arresting someone on felony charges and impounding their vehicle you should at least know what could cause a false positive. People have a right to not be arrested without probable cause and an inaccurate field test or officers that are ignorant of the limitations of a field test should not be enough to lock a guy up."

back at you.

I would imagine they didn't compare the field test with tortilla dough.. And I don't think the cops, who undoubtedly did not design the field test, would have any possible clue that a cheese enzyme would return a false positive.

There was OBVIOUS probable cause to detain, and an OBVIOUS objective and subjective cause to arrest considering the cops aren't fucking chemists

[Edited on May 14, 2011 at 10:47 PM. Reason : d]

5/14/2011 10:46:33 PM

Ok so you are saying that anyone who has a cheese enzyme on them should be imprisoned until it is proven by a state lab that they in fact only have cheese...not cocaine?

5/14/2011 10:49:28 PM

In a perfect world, no?

but seriously, shit happens and nothing is infallible..

Its not as if they knew or probably should have known that a certain cheese enzyme would set off the drug test (in particular, the cops who have nothing to do with the tests design)

But I agree they need to reimburse this guy the full amount of his incarceration.

I'm more pissed off about the "latino community" being up in arms about this.

- also, sorry if I am coming across as a dick, I'm drunk as hell.


[Edited on May 14, 2011 at 10:58 PM. Reason : dd]

5/14/2011 10:54:12 PM

"coming across as a dick"

5/14/2011 10:56:36 PM

We could just imprison everyone until they prove they have done nothing illegal? That would take all the guesswork out of running these tests beside the road. It wold keep the rest of us safe from people who have cocaine hidden in their private vehicles.

I think this policy should be implemented immediately.

5/14/2011 10:57:50 PM

We could stop the war on drugs and save $China

5/14/2011 10:59:02 PM

Quote :

"91 pounds of cocaine in Buncombe County?!?!?"

Comes right down I-40 from the West

5/15/2011 12:19:06 AM

COCAINE SMUGGLING DEVICE REVEALED???

5/15/2011 1:30:43 AM

dick move, they gotta pay

5/15/2011 2:27:01 AM

^^^I hear ya sorta. And while it is plausible, I was laughing last night about how stupid the cops were.

But, if you think about it, they're not that stupid. They had to know. Even the police aren't stupid enough to think a guy travelled across country in a painter truck with 91 pounds of cocaine convincingly disguised as tortilla dough.

So...they need to own up to being extraordinarily stupid (and probably bigoted/racist) or own up to having treated this man maliciously (and, again, being bigots/racists).

The more I think about it, the more I realize how messed up this is.

5/15/2011 8:42:11 AM

Quote :

"Even the police aren't stupid enough to think a guy travelled across country in a painter truck with 91 pounds of cocaine convincingly disguised as tortilla dough."

Why would disguising the cocaine as tortilla dough be that far fetched? If I was a cop and some guy told me he drove from CA with 91 lbs of tortilla dough I would immediately think he is full of shit.

5/15/2011 8:54:26 AM

Yeah, that is just the liberal rage that cops sometimes do profile based on statistics and then continue on weird circumstances ... 91 lbs of tortilla is a little strange, and I don't know what it looks like, but it if is like cocaine, then I would be very suspicious of the suspect


it sucks that they were wrong in this case, but are you going to commend them on the many times that they get the job done?


Sorry tortilla guy, it sucks that this happened to you, and I hope they do the right thing and pay you back enough to cover damages, but fuck- in a system where you police citizens, things like this are going to happen- that is why there is due process and he is no longer sitting in jail.

5/15/2011 8:58:26 AM

and next time, don't drive away when a cop walks over to talk to you

5/15/2011 9:14:40 AM

^^^Because this isn't the movies. Cocaine and tortilla dough are two entirely different things.

A police officer, who studies the substances as part of his training, would have to be really stupid to mistake tortilla dough for cocaine. And they'd have to be extra, extra stupid to think they stumbled on a guy with 91 pounds of special cocaine-tortilla dough in the back of his crappy truck on the side of I-240 in Asheville, NC.

They're either dumb bigots or devious/malicious bigots. I might accept jaded bigots: That is, they've seen so many people locked up that that they just didn't think four days was that big of a deal...they knew they were doing something wrong, but because of their experiences as police officers, they didn't think it was that bad, and the potential upside (busting this guy for being illegal or on some outstanding warrants or something) was worth it to them.

5/15/2011 9:33:50 AM

^ your presumptuousness is unreal.

But you are right, this isn't the movies. Cocaine doesn't always look fresh mountain powder, and cops don't always drag the shit across their tongues.

As I said above, I am a lawyer. My girlfriend has been a prosecutor, and before law school was an intern for a drug task force in Statesville, NC.

Although rare (because it certainly more cost effective to transport refined cocaine), there have been cases in which coca paste (unrefined cocaine) has been seized within the U.S.

Here is a pic:

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://augustachronicle.com/images/headlines/033102/coca_baseball.jpg&imgrefurl=http://old.chronicle.augusta.com/images/headlines/033102/slideshow/slide2.shtml&usg=__y35lm6noLr8jZNULEN9d6K0gqv8=&h=256&w=400&sz=18&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=gVnUgszBjCUUPM:&tbnh=151&tbnw=205&ei=iuLPTb3NEM-TtwfehfSDDg&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dcocaine%2Bpaste%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D650%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=272&page=1&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:0&tx=71&ty=57

Looks a bit like dough doesn't it???

Perhaps even more likely, and as some criminals are tremendously clever, the cops may have thought this person had created yet another way to disguise it. (Of course some are wildly stupid, and even have a little Jesus Malverde - The patron saint of drug running- sitting on their dashboards)

The apparent fact that this guy rode off when the cops approached is in itself HIGHLY suspicious. And we have no idea how he behaved when they forced him to stop. From this brief article, it seems to me that they had every reason to test the substance in the truck. And with a positive return, every reason to then make an arrest.

But you go ahead and keep labeling them bigots, stupid, and jaded when you obviously don't know what you're talking about.



[Edited on May 15, 2011 at 10:28 AM. Reason : b]

5/15/2011 10:25:30 AM

I guess it's too much to ask that police be aware of limitations of the tests they use.

Just like it's too much to ask that someone figure out how to post a picture without fucking up a page.

5/15/2011 10:31:30 AM

^ and how would they possibly know if this particular enzyme hasn't come up before???? They don't design the fucking tests. And I doubt even the designers would know a certain cheese enzyme would return a false positive, considering its unlikely they run the thing against every chemical compound on the earth.


And with a positive result, what should they do??? Put the guy up in a hotel until the lab can run a mass spec and confirm??

Jesus.

[Edited on May 15, 2011 at 10:52 AM. Reason : d]

5/15/2011 10:38:16 AM

Quote :

"And with a positive result, what should they do??? Put the guy up in a hotel until the lab can run a mass spec and confirm??"

Cell Block B- iltmore

5/15/2011 10:45:34 AM

Quote :

"And I doubt even the designers would know a certain cheese enzyme would return a false positive, considering its unlikely they run the thing against every chemical compound on the earth."

Yeah, you're right.

I'm sure the designers are completely unaware of the underlying chemistry their test depends on.

There's no way anyone could ever compile a list of commonly available, legal materials that react in a similar manner.

There's no way it should ever occur to the police to ask 'What could cause a false positive?'

Quote :

"And I doubt even the designers would know"

That's mighty presumptive of you.

5/15/2011 10:50:45 AM

I said I doubt, but you're right, maybe a bit presumptuous there. I'm not a chemist, and I don't know for sure.

But you know what I do know, they can't carry around a full sized mass spec to run these tests, and they probably do the best they can with what they have.

Contrary to what some seem to think, we do not have a right to live in a world free of imperfections.

If, as the officials in the article state, false positives from food are rare - then they did exactly what they should have done.

Quote :

"There's no way it should ever occur to the police to ask 'What could cause a false positive?'"

As above, its obvious that some people knew that there can be a false positive. But just as a breathalyzer, radar gun, urine test, paternity test, or any other test for that matter is not completely accurate, obviously this test can be flawed as well. So then it simply boils down to just how often these false positives occur.

That said, jumping on that anti-cop bandwagon and calling them stupid or racist or belligerent over this is completely unfair.

Now watch something come out that shows the cops beating this guy







[Edited on May 15, 2011 at 11:19 AM. Reason : dd]

5/15/2011 11:02:04 AM

No one is arguing about the imperfections of any given test. It's the fact that the idiots DIDN'T KNOW the things that could have created a false positive (foods, in this case).

I sure as hell hope they would have a backup at the station or elsewhere that was more accurate and immediately available than their field tests to verify their results.

[Edited on May 15, 2011 at 11:17 AM. Reason : -]

5/15/2011 11:16:40 AM

Once again, I'm sure in a perfect world that all precincts would have have modern lab equipment, and chemists or techs on sight to run an immediate test.

But, and yes this is a bit presumptuous too, I imagine we have centralized labs because the equipment is extremely expensive an its cost prohibitive to have more.







[Edited on May 15, 2011 at 11:29 AM. Reason : d]

5/15/2011 11:24:02 AM

Quote :

"As above, its obvious the cops do know that there can be a false positive."

From the article:

Quote :

"Buncombe County Sheriff Van Duncan said he didn't know until this case that some foods, like cheese, can give false positives on field drug tests."

I will give credit to the Sheriff for saying that he will train his deputies. Hopefully, it's continuing training that will include future LEOs, and not a one off training for current deputies.

Quote :

"false positives from food are rare"

Why are they rare? Are false positives from food rare because the police rarely test food? Or, are they rare because there are actually few foods that will create a false positive?

Quote :

"Contrary to what some seem to think, we do not have a right to live in a world free of imperfections."

No, but a presumption of innocence does give me benefit of the doubt.

5/15/2011 11:27:02 AM

Quote :

"Perhaps even more likely, and as some criminals are tremendously clever, the cops may have thought this person had created yet another way to disguise it"

More likely?

Two million dollars of cocaine cleverly disguised as tortilla dough in the back of some guy's truck
pulled over on the side of the road with his hazards on and no weapons in the vehicle...

...or friggin' tortilla dough.

Hmmm...

Like I said, it's the not the friggin' movies.

But it's cute that you're a lawyer and all.

5/15/2011 11:30:28 AM

1- Yes, the officials at the lab knew that there could be false positives, not the cops.

Which would then lead me to believe there was just a breakdown in communication between them all.

2- The state official said they are rare, and I have no idea of why or how rare. That's why I stated it boils down to just how accurate the test is.


But you know, just to be devil's advocate here:

Even if they knew or should have known that the tests could return a false positive, what would you then expect these cops to do?

Let him go on whatever chance it is just food.

Drive the sample to Raleigh and force the techs to run the test immediately, so they won't keep an innocent man in custody?




^ cute, no. But unless you happen to be a cop, or have a criminal justice background, I'll bet I know a hell of a lot more about police investigation than you do.

But like I said, you go on spouting off your stereotypes





[Edited on May 15, 2011 at 11:39 AM. Reason : d]

[Edited on May 15, 2011 at 11:49 AM. Reason : erasing the name calling]

5/15/2011 11:33:25 AM

Quote :

"Even if they knew or should have known that the tests could return a false positive, what would you then expect these cops to do? Let him go on whatever chance it is just food. Drive the sample to Raleigh and force the techs to run the test immediately, so they won't keep an innocent man in custody?"

Yes.

[Edited on May 15, 2011 at 11:41 AM. Reason : ]

5/15/2011 11:40:35 AM

Well then you are incredibly unrealistic, and I will leave you to your fantasy world.

5/15/2011 11:43:07 AM

^^I agree.

^I'm stunned that you don't think four days in jail for an innocent man isn't a really big deal.

[Edited on May 15, 2011 at 11:46 AM. Reason : avoidable four days, too.]

5/15/2011 11:45:37 AM

Quote :

"Well then you are incredibly unrealistic, and I will leave you to your fantasy world."

Please explain to me how I'm wrong, living in fantasy world.

[Edited on May 15, 2011 at 11:49 AM. Reason : ]

5/15/2011 11:48:44 AM

Field drug tests are notoriously unreliable, especially the ones for marijuana and opiates. Tons and tons of things will trigger a false positive.

There are all kinds of things wrong with this story. Leaving isn't against the law unless you are being detained. Why did they puncture his tires? Why did it take so long to determine that this was not in fact cocaine? Why are they charging him any money for wrongfully impounding his car? I smell a load of bullshit. The only good thing this guy had going for him is that he wasn't in Fletcher, NC. Those cops are real grade A dickbags.

5/15/2011 11:51:05 AM