
Georgia Southern QB: roadside drug test wrongly showed bird droppings as cocaine - Tomte
http://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/i-team/georgia-southern-qb-says-roadside-drug-test-wrongly-showed-bird-droppings-as-cocaine
======
HarryHirsch
Turns blue? It sounds too much like the Scott test
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt(II)_thiocyanate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt\(II\)_thiocyanate)),
which any chemist will tell you reacts positive with any amine. _Of course_
bird shit tests positive, as will your garden-variety antihistaminic and many
other household medications.

It's just nothing but a fishing expedition for probable cause so that police
can exercise their contempt for black youth.

~~~
siphor
Hah crazy, it is a scott test. this is the exact packet that he's using. You
can see it on the youtube video someone posted below. They also say it turns
pink and that's the positive test. But the directions on that site say it has
to be blue.. and some nonsense about a bunch of vestibules that the guy just
all shakes together it seems? Unclear.

[https://www.copsplus.com/sirchie-narkii-test-07-scott-
reagen...](https://www.copsplus.com/sirchie-narkii-test-07-scott-reagent-
modified-box-of-10)

Here's the directions on the website:

Confirm suspicions of cocaine presence using the NARKII Test 07-Scott Reagent
from Sirchie®. The improved presumptive test utilizes a three-vestibule system
to identify powdered cocaine, as well as cocaine bases, crack and freebase. To
administer the test, place a small sample of the suspected substance in each
of the three ampoules. The first vestibule will melt, creating a blue solution
if the sample is pure powdered cocaine. A cocaine base will form hard blue
specs that float in a pink solution. Both forms of the substance will dissolve
into a pink liquid in the second container. The third ampule will have a burst
of blue, that later separates into a pink over blue solution when mixed with
either powdered or cocaine bases.

This is hilariously sad. These cops have 0 training, or are out for blood. I'm
thinking Hanlon's Razor.

EDIT: Here's the video timestamp where you can see the packet:
[https://youtu.be/c7j-Ijo2TYw?t=545](https://youtu.be/c7j-Ijo2TYw?t=545)

Side note HD bodycams are pretty good, surprised you can see and read this
packet that clearly.

~~~
MertsA
What's especially sad is that there have been cases in Florida that were tied
back to officers thinking that a negative test meant that it contained
cocaine.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/magazine/how-a-2-roadside...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/magazine/how-a-2-roadside-
drug-test-sends-innocent-people-to-jail.html)

>When we examined the department’s records, they showed that officers, faced
with somewhat ambiguous directions on the pouches, had simply misunderstood
which colors indicated a positive result.

------
chrisrogers
> He said it took several miles before Werts agreed to pull over. Werts said
> he was only looking for a lighted spot and called 911 to let them know
> that's why he wasn't pulling over immediately.

That's a very smart move, to position yourself in a safe place and notify
dispatch of your intent in the moment. This is nearly the picture-perfect
example of protecting yourself from police, and yet Werts was still jailed on
shoddy cause.

Policing in America still needs a reckoning, now. Crime is middle-high in
cities, and small municipal and state police are trying so hard to justify
their cost increases with COMPSTAT figures. And if you're trying to rock the
boat the least, go for young black men. It's a miscarriage on a terrible
scale.

~~~
MertsA
>That's a very smart move, to position yourself in a safe place and notify
dispatch of your intent in the moment.

I completely disagree. It's not up to the driver to choose when and where they
comply with law enforcement. Most officers aren't going to find driving for
several miles after being pulled over to be reasonable. If he had just pulled
over immediately this probably would have just been an expensive ticket and he
would have stayed out of jail. I'm not saying that the police response is
reasonable, but even going as fast as he was, while that can be justification
to arrest someone that's still up to officer discretion and being respectful
and clearly not impaired would probably keep you from being arrested.

~~~
rootw0rm
Actually, what the driver did is specifically recommended in many
jurisdictions...partly due to the problem of people impersonating police
officers.

Also, blind obedience is gross. It's our duty to think.

------
zaroth
> Werts: "I pulled over last night to clean my car and it didn't come off with
> that little thing you use to clean it with."

> Deputy: "That's a lot of bird poop man."

Clearly it was too voluminous to be bird shit. Must be cocaine! I just, wow.

~~~
taneq
Because I, too, put my extremely expensive product, which is a fine powder, on
the outside of my moving vehicle.

------
Dansvidania
It really did not look like cocaine. They might know what bird poop looks
like, but definitely not cocaine...

that aside, lets assume for a second that it was in fact cocaine

are you now responsible for whatever people do outside/on top/in the vicinity
of your car while parked?

~~~
ericpearl
Only if you’re black in America.

~~~
Dansvidania
I satisfy none of the conditions you list, but I am still tentative regarding
visiting/moving to the US.

Cops there seem to have way too much power, and a worrying amount of them make
use of it with enough regularity that there is never shortage of news
regarding it.

Things are crap in Europe too, but it hardly ever gets that bad here.

~~~
lopmotr
The size of the country means extreme events should be more common and more
extreme than in a European country even if it's no worse. Europe as a whole
has its own problems, just of a different nature - like ongoing terrorism and
sexual assaults. They also don't have such a big underclass of poor and
hopeless people in geographically concentrated areas like America has.

~~~
Dansvidania
as I said, things are crap here too, in many diversified and creative ways.

I am from Italy and we have crippling corruption and criminality problems,
even though we have a fifth of the population in 0.03 times the land area. I
am familiar with the problems that scare tourists away :)

I would only like to point out that you quote terrorism and sexual assault as
things comparable to your own police force abusing power over your citizens. I
think there are a few important differences.

~~~
jjeaff
Police abuse is a travesty and must be stopped.

That being said, unless you live in a high crime area, you are unlikely to
have much if any interaction with the police at all.

And when you do, it will likely be friendly.

Basing your decision on a fear of police abuse is like people who don't swim
in the ocean because they are afraid of shark attacks.

------
jelling
It's like police racism, stupidity and corruption had a footrace and it's too
close to call.

~~~
lopmotr
Why are people assuming racism? There isn't actually any evidence for that in
this case, is there? He was pulled over for speeding just like anyone else
would be, and was slow to stop which would have made the cops extra suspicious
no matter his race. He was also a man which means a higher chance of being a
criminal - could it actually be sexism you're mistaking for racism?

~~~
stefco_
> Why are people assuming racism?

Because a huge number of black people in America describe a frequency and
quality of interactions with police that are vastly different from white
people's described experiences, claims which are backed up by horrifying
anecdotes (like this story, or the seemingly weekly story of some other small
town police department that was "shocked" to find it had officers in the local
KKK chapter) and larger scale statistics on law enforcement.

That is a strong prior. Coupled with the utter stupidity of testing bird shit
on the outside of a car to see if it's cocaine, it seems entirely fair to
conclude this was motivated by some amount of racism.

------
ikeyany
God forbid we might get associated with SJWs and actually admit that black
people are treated fundamentally worse and more suspicious by authorities in
the United States. And it's being encouraged from the top.

~~~
lopmotr
There isn't an easy balance. Blacks and Hispanics are disproportionately
represented as crime victims because they live around other blacks or
Hispanics. How can the police protect them without the focusing on the most
likely perpetrators? If they were to treat everyone equally, it would make
things worse for the victims. The beneficiaries of that change would be richer
white people who would get more policing in their already safer neighborhoods,
as well as black criminals who could evade justice more easily.

~~~
antonvs
Your argument is undermined by a flawed assumption:

> How can the police protect them

The goal of the kind of policing described here is not to protect the
population they're harassing members of. It is to harass them to help maintain
a racist status quo.

> There isn't an easy balance

This kind of enlightened centrism serves a similar purpose. Don't defend bad
practices if you don't support them.

~~~
lopmotr
Cocaine causes serious problems for black people. You're surely not proposing
ignoring it?

> It is to harass them to help maintain a racist status quo.

Have you got some evidence for that? The idea of systemic racism is not that.
It's an emergent phenomenon that isn't driven by anyone's desire to harass
people or be racist.

------
taneq
Looks like they can arrest the crows now that they've got probable caws.

~~~
notduncansmith
While I appreciate a good pun as much as the next person, I don’t think “crow”
is the most appropriate bird to use for that joke:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws)

------
dba7dba
Full bodycam video of the interaction is at:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7j-Ijo2TYw&t=1295s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7j-Ijo2TYw&t=1295s)

Courtesy of 'PoliceActivity' channel. I am not related to teh channel in any
way, just a subscriber.

------
gingabriska
On tangent, I wonder if birds can be used to deliver drugs successfully.

~~~
briandear
Carrier pigeons, but not at any weight worth the trouble.

~~~
jld
Is it an African or European pigeon?

~~~
opwieurposiu
Better to use a European pigeon, less likely to get pulled over.

------
msie
All police departments should shut down for a day for racial bias training.

~~~
fiblye
More than just that. That need to learn to actually respect people as people
and learn a little humility. There’s too much “I’ve got a gun and that means
I’m right and you do what I say no matter what” style thinking among police in
America. Teach cops to back down if they have the slightest degree of
uncertainty, and honestly, fire and permanently bar major offenders from legal
professions for life.

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ec109685
As an aside, what a horrible website to read an article. Weird things were
highlighted and it suddenly switched to a full screen ad.

------
auslander
Police is after birds now?

