When Texas police take a person into custody for suspected criminal activity, there is no way to predict with 100% certainty what the ultimate outcome of the case might be. Sometimes, criminal charges are filed, a case to trial and a conviction is handed down in court. Other times, however, it might not even get that far, especially if a judge orders all charges to be dropped.
That’s exactly what happened for one man who spent approximately six weeks in jail. Police had initially said that they witnessed the man and one other person pouring liquid from a tankard truck into 55-gallon drum buckets. Police detained the driver and later said that it seemed odd that the liquid was crystallizing around the edges of the buckets. A police officer ran some tests on the liquid and took the man into custody for suspected drug crimes.
A police officer said the liquid tested positive for methamphetamine
The patrol officer who arrested the man said the liquid that was tested registered positive methamphetamine. Officials from the police department later listed the value of the alleged drugs to be at least $10 million. When a substance is seized from the scene of an arrest, it must be sent to a laboratory for further testing.
It turns out that the alleged methamphetamine was fuel
While it took six weeks to resolve the situation, a judge ordered the release of the man from jail and ordered all criminal charges against him, dropped. Sometimes, when police send a suspicious substance to a lab for testing, it will come back as having confirmed their preliminary testing. In this case, however, lab tests showed that the liquid the man had been pouring into the drums was, in fact, diesel fuel and oil. If a person knows that he or she is innocent when taken into police custody, one of the first logical steps to take is to seek support from a criminal defense attorney.