Well, police aren't the average person. Police are trained to get it right. The average person doesn't have the power to arrest you, kill you or ruin your life, and the lady cop received a written reprimand for the improper use of the field kit, so it's not like you can blame it on the kit. Why were these police looking at the guy's floor in the first place? Do doubts that sugar crumbs on the floor might possibly be something else justify an arrest? Guilty until proven innocent? When in any doubt just arrest? Are doughnut and sugar eaters everywhere now in danger? What if the guy had made a "sudden" move and been shot to death over this? In a court of law, any doubt always works in the accused favor; have we changed that now? They could have taken the crumbs, gotten his name and address, tested the crystals at a proper lab, then if they indeed turned out meth, THEN go look him up!
And here's a crazy thought: they could have TASTED one of the flakes! Sugar tastes SWEET! Meth tastes BITTER. Sugar SMELLS SWEET. Meth smells ACRID.
I know enough chemistry to know that a drug kit does not accidentally test positive on simple sugar crystals mistaking them for Meth! This lady either used the test improperly, didn't know how to use it, or deliberately fudged the test somehow to MAKE a positive outcome so she could justify taking him in. That the guy said he was "pleased with the outcome" doesn't mean he was happy about it, and it certainly doesn't justify it------ ask the guy if he would be arrested again and go through all of that with possible ruination of his business career just for a lousy $37,000 and I guarantee you he would say no! What he probably meant was that he was just pleased to be out of jail, have his record cleared and be free again.
Out of that $37 K comes all the legal costs and many other things; frankly, I wouldn't be happy at all just getting that amount! Had the same thing happened to a movie star or someone else, the settlement would have been in the millions. Frankly I'm appalled that anyone could dismiss this as a simple mistake that worked out after all so no harm done! So what is the new policy? Man scratches nose, cop mistakes it for him going for a gun and shoots man in face? Oops! My Mistake?