I feel sorry for her. She's stupid. It must suck to be stupid.

If they have anything to do with the field test indicating a positive (i.e. they created it, bought it, didn't test it properly, or tampered with it), then they most certainly are to blame. They are also to blame for a three-week backlog on the final lab results.

I do feel bad for her. She did something that was not illegal under any reasonable interpretation of any law, and obviously, certifiably, and detectably so, and landed in jail for three weeks anyway.

They had Probable Cause to arrest her under the circumstances.

Only because the test was faulty. And, there's "arrest" and there's "detain for three weeks."

That sums it up for me too. Maybe a dumb joke, a dumb thing to do, but not illegal in any way whatsoever.

Dumb joke maybe, but not something that "reasonable" people do.

I do not feel sorry for her in the least. To me it seems similar to teasing an animal and then being surprised when it attacks.

"Doing something reasonable people wouldn't do" is not worthy of jail time, at least in cases where that "something" didn't result in death or serious bodily injury.

I'll vote for not sorry for her. What a moron.

I just hope she isn't successful in extorting money out of the city because of her own stupidity.

Don't know anything about the movie, haven't seen it, but real cops do taste drugs for a quick test. I've seen it done. I've also seen field tests done on fake drugs that turned up negative.

I'd still bet the "field test" showed negative but they arrested her anyway just because they could.

Not the same situation here. You are not trying to pass through a security check at an airport and your not using condoms... The drug dealers choice of latex.

I've seen these "flour babies" in balloons on the desks of school clerks...no big deal. Fill a condom and try to go through security... 3 weeks in jail, apparently.

Lots of people do lots of things I'd consider stupid, and if there is a terrible consequence, especially if it is not proportional to the level of stupidity of the act, I do feel sorry for them. I'm just wired that way.

Doesn't this scare any other guy on this Board?

So in your world it's ok to write bad checks?

In my world, purposefully writing bad checks is actually illegal according to some statute passed by some legislature.

Hey, better the flour condoms than....

I say forget the fact it was packaged in condoms, that's totally irrelevant. If she had a pound of flour in a factory sealed bag in her luggage and they still jailed her on a false positive does that make her stupid?

All I'm saying is that jail time doesn't have to require death or serious bodily injury. People go to jail every day for not paying a speeding ticket... Yet there was no accident involved and no one was hurt.

If you put yourself in a position where the police may reasonably think you are a drug trafficer then you get what you deserve. IMHO

I think his point in that post was specifically addressing non-illegal activity. Obviously, actual illegal activity deserves punishment.

Former President Woodrom Wilson would spin in his grave (he was once president of this all girls school)

I didn't say it required death or serious bodily injury. I said that being put in jail for simply being "unreasonable," as opposed to doing things on purpose, or knowingly, usually requires death or serious bodily injury. Which is different from my main point, which is that jail time usually requires something actually illegal.

Sorry, I may have misunderstood. I'm not looking for a fight, I just have no sympathy for her... I don't really care how long they held her.

I'm confused.....how do you get flour into balloons....and why?

Seems to me that this is just a mess waiting to happen. If the balloon pops or gets a hole, you would have flour all over your car, your house, and/or your kids.

As far as the original story....it almost seems like the girl was seeing if she could get by the security screening. If she got through, I can imagine that the story would be that someone snuck through security with a drug like substance and didn't get detected.

As others have said....lesson learned.

Except that it wasn't learned. If she had been suitably chagrined by her stupidity she wouldn't be suing, she would be apologizing.

I don't think you misunderstood. You think "what she did was unreasonable, so I don't care how long they keep her in jail." I disagree - I don't think unreasonableness is per se illegal, and if it's not illegal, she shouldn't have been in jail.

She wastes valuable police and lab time, on the public's dime.

Now she wants the taxpayers to kick in a bogus settlement.

What a country we've become.

Yes, the cops and the lab are pathetic to keep her in jail that long - two days would have sufficed - but in the long run, this stupid prank is just another item in a long line of bogus garbage (including government corruption, etc) that will come out of our wallets.

Yet another vote for "who would think of something so dumb" here.

Assume for the moment that the girl was telling the truth and it was all entirely innocent. Why would you pack something like that? If the condoms broke, you'd have flour all over the contents of your luggage. It'd be a hassle to wash and a fortune to dry clean all your stuff.

And forget about drugs -- anybody trying to take any kind of unknown powdered substance through airport security post 9/11, after all the anthrax stuff in the news -- absolutely, positively dumb.

Has this girl not watched TV news or read a newspaper in the past five years? What planet has she been on?

Jan

They doubtless used the same brand of field test they use to test money for cocaine residue when they want to confiscate cash from travelers whom they think are carrying "too much" cash.

The penalty for "wasting valuable police and lab time" by doing something stupid but not illegal or even malicious is something less than three weeks in jail, no?