The Germs' Drummer Arrested For Carrying Soap

dwrugh writes "The drummer for the seminal punk band The Germs, Don Bolles, was arrested in Orange County because a field-test kit indicated his bottle of Dr. Bronner's soap contained GHB, the date-rape drug. (Here is an interview with Bolles.) Using the same test kit, available on the web for $20 for a pack of 10, according to Bolles' attorney on NBC this morning, other soaps tested positive for GHB. But of course since it's just soap, when you test it in a real crime lab it comes back negative. Makes you wonder what other common household products also test positive, and how many others have been arrested based on faulty test kits who didn't have the resources to defend themselves."

Comments

Do your job "editors"

[MaelstromX]

Editors, I wish you'd take five seconds to review what you are putting up. TFA is from April 11 (that's eleven days ago), and since then he has been released. A discussion of the faultiness of field testing methods might be in order but you need to properly set the stage for said discussion, otherwise it gets derailed when people get alarmed about the fact that somebody is sitting in jail right now for a mistake and then somebody (in this case me) has to come and point out that the whole thing has actually been resolved.

Re:Do your job "editors"

[jimicus]

Sorry, while this story is upsetting, I'm not really outraged when somebody is falsely arrested, as long as they are not falsely convicted, and as long as the basis for the arrest was honest and without any malice or impropriety. I certainly would like to see the number of innocent people arrested minimized, and in that sense maybe we can learn something about how field testing methods can be less than reliable, and maybe in certain cases their findings should have to be corroborated before they can be used to arrest somebody. I was just kind of annoyed that the detail of "this person's situation has been totally resolved" was not included in the writeup.

Technically, you're correct. But mud sticks.

What if he wasn't a drummer with a band? What if he was an IT geek with a day job in a "respectable" office like a large percentage of /. readership? Would our collective employers be pleased to know that someone they employed had just been arrested on suspicion of carrying a date-rape drug?

In many parts of the world, my guess is you'd come home from your short involuntary stint in prison to find yourself out of work with little hope of a reference or of redress. The police "acted properly" by arresting you when they thought you'd committed a crime, and released you when it became apparent you hadn't. Not their fault your employer dropped you like a hot potato.

What it does do is highlight that some of these tests need to be drastically improved.

huh?

[gEvil (beta)]

What's this "soap" thing you're talking about?

Re:It's not a matter of resources...

[badfish99]

However, TFA says that Bolles spent 3 days in jail, presumably waiting for the results of a test.

I've been stopped for a broken tail light in my country, and the police certainly did not use this as an excuse for searching my car. Is it usual in your country for people to be imprisoned for so long on so little evidence, after so minor a motoring offence?

Re:It's sort of like poppy seed bagels

[vux984]

A few months ago I saw an episode of myth busters which proved having just one poppy seed bagel can cause you to fail a drug test. I downloaded the show and sent the DVD to my parents to clear my name.

Ok, so you cleared your name of being a drug user only to incriminate yourself as a copyright infringer... a crime far worse in todays legal framework.

A word of advice; once they catch up to you:

Don't drop the soap!

Re:We'll get to see more like this

[geoff lane]

GHB is rare. The use of GHB is rare. Suppose the test kits are 99% accurate. In 1000 tests, there will be 10 false positives. In 1000 people there is probably zero actually carrying GHB. So when some cops jump to a conclusion based on the supposed effectiveness of the test, they are almost always going to be wrong.

It seems that the test kits are a lot less reliable than 99% in some environments which makes them useless.

In situations where the event is rare, the failure mode of the test will dominate the effectiveness of the action taken.

The same faulty thinking is common in anti-terrorism procedures. Actual terrorists are rare and almost every action taken to detect or prevent terrorist acts has a very high false positive rate that makes it useless for the purpose.

Test kit limitations

[Anonymous Coward]

Why they'd test the soap for anything is just plain stupid. Several different soaps, bleaches, and other common household items are used in the military to simulate chemical contamination because they will cause the test kits to go positive.

Any police getting fooled like that, or even bother to test soap is either an idiot, hasn't even the most basic training in using the kit properly, or is trying to frame someone. (Possibly to get a more expansive search warrant. Assuming they still need one...)

Doesn't matter if this happened a couple weeks ago and the guy has been released. Kind of like getting arrested for being black in a Benz, and later released with no charges. That #### isn't supposed to happen in the first place and is a major issue. (To put it politely)

Looking for a reason to arrest.

[Skreech]

Cops look for a reason to arrest. If they "just know" that some civilian is guilty of "something," then obviously they can make a field test return a positive result with soap to give them more time to search or whatever. There's probably a short list of somewhat common materials people may have with them that tests positive on some specific test.

It's along the same lines as pulling someone over and asking the driver ten different times the basic question "Is it okay to search your car?" In progressively more confusing and convoluted ways because all the driver has to do is slip up once. Then the cop can get on with his job of figuring out what you're guilty of.

It's like developing a field test for explosives and then being able to arrest someone because their gasoline tank tested positive for highly flammable material.