i imagine you're pleased by this story of the thin blue line keeping you safe from drug traffickers;
For nearly six full weeks, 29-year-old Matt Crull said he sat inside a Florida jail for a crime he didn’t commit.
The charge was trafficking heroin, according
to CBS12. It came with a steep potential punishment and bond, which
frightened Crull, who said an officer mistook laundry detergent for
heroin.
“(It’s) very surreal when you’re sitting in jail with a half a million dollars bond,” Crull told WPBF25, “and you can’t go anywhere knowing that you didn’t do wrong.
“In the past, when I have gone to jail, it’s been something where I knew I wasn’t going to be there forever,”
Crull said, according to WPTV. “It’s a lot different than going to jail
and the charge of trafficking of heroin carries a penalty of 25 years
in prison.”
Crull was arrested by Martin County Sheriff’s deputy Steven O’Leary
on Dec. 5, according to WPTV. Sheriff William Snyder says the officer
has been fired after an investigation uncovered that at least 11 people
he put in jail for drug charges were found innocent, the TV station
reported.
“No matter what we do, no matter how hard we try, just based on the
law of possibilities there’s always a possibility that one bad apple
will slip through,” Snyder said, according to WPTV. The TV station
reported that Crull may sue for damages.
Crull was sleeping inside his van in a parking lot before the arrest,
according to CBS12. Officers got word of a “suspicious van” and went to
check it out.
That’s when police say O’Leary found a bag of Tide laundry detergent
and claimed a field test proved it was heroin, CBS12 reported.
“He showed me a picture of the field test kit that he supposedly
conducted, on his phone,” Crull told CBS12. “He never actually showed me
the real test kit.”
But Crull said he was confused how a drug was found in his car in the first place.
“I just looked at him baffled and confused,” he told WPTV, “because I
had no idea as to where 92 grams of heroin came from inside my van.”
Snyder said they “couldn’t find anything credible with what O’Leary
stated” and freed the 11 people, including Crull, who had been accused
of possessing drugs, as reported by CBS12.
Now, Crull has a message for the officer whose arrest stole weeks of his life away.
“I’m not saying he ruined my life,” Crull told WPBF25, “but he
definitely caused me a lot of emotional distress and a lot of stress on
my family.”...........https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/nation-world/national/article225235460.html
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