DORAVILLE, Ga. – Innocent Georgians are winding up in jail – sometimes for weeks – because of a positive field drug test that ultimately winds up being reversed.
Law enforcement agencies across the country routinely use these $2 disposable tests as part of their initial investigation when they suspect someone has drugs.
But a FOX 5 I-Team investigative revealed how police claim those tests showed positive results for items that clearly had nothing to do with illegal drugs.
On their way home from a rare dinner out last October, Simon Cofie and his wife Clarice Doku were stopped by a Doraville police officer because he spotted a plastic cover over their license plate. Simon told us he bought the cover at an auto parts store because he wanted to keep his Dodge Charger looking clean and sharp.
According to the police video, the Doraville officer also believed he smelled a “little odor of marijuana.” Simon and Clarice told us they do not smoke marijuana. None was found.
“If I don’t find anything, you guys can go on your way, ok?” the Doraville officer told them. “If I do find something, someone’s going to jail tonight.”
Someone did go to jail, but just like dozens of others across the country, it wasn’t because they had something illegal. It’s because a field drug test wrongly said they did.
“I said, I know I’m innocent,” Clarice remembered. “So whatever is going to come, I know I’m innocent.”
Simon and Clarice are newlyweds trying to have a baby. Last year she was taking a popular vitamin – folic acid – in hopes of improving their chances. She said she put half the tablets in a plastic baggy so she wouldn’t forget to also take them at work.
Doraville police found that baggy in their glove compartment and immediately put the couple in handcuffs, suspecting they were trafficking ecstasy. On the police bodycam video, you can hear the officers discussing those tablets.
“It does look like X though,” remarked one. “There’s no markings on it.”
“She says it’s folic acid,” a second Doraville officer replied. “She bought it at Wal-Mart. She split it, putting half in here and half in the bottle when she’s at work.”
“With no markings?” asked the first officer. “Even vitamins have markings on them.”
Actually, vitamins often do not have any markings. To check their hunch, Doraville police did a quick field test on those white tablets, using a NARK II field test kit manufactured by Sirchie, which markets itself as “the world leader in criminal investigation and forensic supplies.” According to the Doraville police report, the white tablets tested positive for Ecstasy.
“We thought we were watching a movie,” remembered Simon. “We knew that this is folic acid. A common vitamin.”
The couple wound up in the DeKalb County jail for two weeks until their public defender could convince a judge to release them on a signature bond.
“I kept crying all the time,” Clarice admitted.
“We’ve never been in jail in our life,” said Simon. “And being there was like a different world to me.”
By the time they got out, the damage had been done. Clarice’s employer fired her for not showing up to work. Simon missed his swearing-in ceremony to become an American citizen. Five months later, the GBI Crime lab released its own findings on those white tablets: negative for controlled substances.
The case was dropped. Charges dismissed.
“Do you think these tests are sending innocent people to jail?” I asked the couple.
“Yes,” they said. “And we are using ourselves as an example. We want everybody to know, whole country to be aware of this.”
[…]
As for Simon and Clarice, you might think life is back to normal now. But even dismissed charges will haunt you. When we ran a background check on Clarice, we found her arrest on drug trafficking charges.
She says no fulltime employer will hire her now. All because of a bag of vitamins, and a test some cops clearly trust way too much.
“We believe that America is an advanced country,” Simon explained. “This should not be happening. It’s putting a lot of people in trouble.”
‘The retailer, which last year made more than £6bn of revenues in
Britain, has a disciplinary system under which points are accrued for
illness. Workers are issued a penalty point for each episode of
sickness.
Workers are told that more than one point will result
in a “series of counselling and disciplinary meetings” and between four
and six points can result in dismissal.
In one case, a woman who spent three days in hospital with a kidney
infection was docked two points, reduced to one on appeal, despite
providing a hospital note.
The system has been revealed in an investigation by The Sunday Times at Amazon’s sorting depot in Dunfermline, Scotland.
The
undercover reporter was paid £7.35 per hour by an agency that supplies
workers to Amazon, but was left with less than the minimum wage after
paying £10 for the agency’s bus which took her to the site 40 miles from
her home in Glasgow.
It emerged this weekend that some low-paid
workers are camping out in woodland near the sorting depot to avoid
paying the bus costs and ensure they are left with more than the minimum
wage…
The reporter obtained a job with PMP Recruitment, one of the two main
agencies that hires and supervises workers at the Dunfermline depot.
The investigation found:
Workers being threatened with dismissal
if they accrued too many points for illness, late attendance or
absence, or for making too many errors or failing to hit productivity
targets.
A claim from a worker in Amazon’s on-site first-aid
clinic that workers were under pressure to hit targets and were
suffering injuries in the rush to collect products
Workers were
expected to cover more than 10 miles a day in the warehouse collecting
items, but water dispensers to ensure they avoided dehydration were
regularly empty
The reporter was told she had to sign an
opt-out of the working time directive, which limits weekly hours to 48,
in order to get a job.
The reporter was employed as a “temporary
warehouse operative” at Amazon’s vast plant in Fife. She worked in the
“picking” department, which involved retrieving items from across
several floors of the sprawling warehouse, according to orders displayed
on a handheld scanner she was given. She worked at least 10 hours a
day, with an unpaid 30-minute lunch break and two 15-minute paid breaks….
Under the system
set out in the Amazon temporary associate handbook, half a point is
issued to recruits who are late to work or late back from a break; one
point for “one period of sickness”; and three points for “no call, no
show”. The undercover reporter was told that anyone who was more than 30
seconds late in arriving at work or returning after a break would be
subject to the half-point penalty.
Workers were also told that if
they made more than one error a week in collecting items or failed to
hit productivity targets they could be subject to a disciplinary
process, which could result in dismissal.’
how the fuck are the unions allowing this???? disgusting
Support the Amazon general strike today, July 10th – do not buy from Amazon! Even if your intention is to make some kind of statement with your purchase – don’t, this is (as other bloggers before me have said) the equivalent of crossing a picket line and still handing them profit!
“The revival of the Hawaiian language, which was at one point nearly extinct, is now being used as a model for how other indigenous languages can be revitalized.”
QueerGalaxies 