History Main / MistakenForEvidence

* Played straight in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltway_sniper_attacks 2002 Beltway sniper attacks]]. The snipers targeted people just off of interstates and major highways, to ensure they could get away quickly. Because of he high volume of commercial traffic that used those highways, many eyewitnesses at the shootings reported seeing a "white van or box truck speeding away." The police and FBI ran with this theory, and [[CassandraTruth ignored a report at one of the first shootings]] about an older blue Chevrolet Caprice. Eventually, other evidence was revealed tying the Caprice to the snipers, at which point the investigators realized that [[PoliceAreUseless it had been found at multiple checkpoints after each shooting]].

* Subverted in Film/StarskyAndHutch. One of the plot points is cocaine that drug dogs can't detect; when the title characters bring it in, they're told they've found powdered sugar. It's not.

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* This tends to happen a lot in the ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' series, [[InvertedTrope mostly in the inverse direction]], but there are some normal moments too.

You've apprehended a suspect. You have video of him carrying a large plastic bag filled with a suspicious-looking white powder. This must be the easiest open-and-shut case you've seen all year. In fact, the bag of powder has just come back from the lab identified as...cake mix?

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* Played straight in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltway_sniper_attacks 2002 Beltway sniper attacks]]. The snipers targeted people just off of interstates and major highways, to ensure they could get away quickly. Because of he high volume of commercial traffic that used those highways, many eyewitnesses at the shootings reported seeing a "white van or box truck speeding away." The police and FBI ran with this theory, and [[CassandraTruth ignored a report at one of the first shootings]] about an older blue Chevrolet Caprice. Eventually, other evidence was revealed tying the Caprice to the snipers, at which point the investigators realized that [[PoliceAreUseless it had been found at multiple checkpoints after each shooting]].

* In ''{{Wilt}}'', after Henry Wilt is accused of murdering his wife, the police search his house and find a lot of what looks like damning evidence, including a cleaver he had used to open a can of red lead.

* One episode of ''{{NCIS}}'' had the team investigating what they believed was a murder caught on video. Halfway in, Abby discovers that the knife that was supposedly used as the murder weapon is a prop knife that drips stage blood.

* One episode of ''TheDrewCareyShow'' had Drew's being investigated on suspicion of being a junkie. The white powder on Drew's coffee table is revealed to be powdered sugar from an extraordinary quantity of donuts, and one police officer found a professional-grade scale thinking it was being used to make meth, when Drew was trying to prove that Quarter Pounders weigh less than a quarter pound in order to file a lawsuit.

* Once on ''{{Matlock}}'', Matlock and Tyler (his private investigator) were investigating a person who had some strange powdery substance delivered to his house every day. Tyler was working undercover as a chauffeur. They met late at night in a dark alleyway for Ben to get a sample for testing. Then the cops came and busted Matlock, since it was a known drug trafficking hangout. Matlock protested his innocence but was arrested. The cops tested the powder - it was a diet formula.

* A {{CSI}} episode started with a room with walled covered in spattered blood. Later it was found that the blood had come from a man with a nosebleed, deliberately messing up the walls.

* Possibly an urban myth: Three 7th-grade students at a Chicago public school were once arrested and brought to the police station for selling bags of a powder, which they continually insisted was just Kool-Aid. After spending 3 months trying to press charges, the prosecutors finally agreed to test the powder - and it turned out to be grape Kool-Aid mix. Due to the dangers involved in on-the-spot manual analysis of suspicious white powders (read: [[FingertipDrugAnalysis sampling or sniffing]]) an arrest will usually be made on the grounds of suspicious behavior or prior suspicion and the arrested will be detained until the powder can be tested - whether in the lab or using special equipment or dogs.

* One PeterKay skit related his CrazyPrepared dad's trouble carrying a small plastic bag of Coffeemate, a milk substitute that comes in the form of a white powder, through foreign customs.

* Possibly an urban myth: Three 7th-grade students at a Chicago public school were once arrested and brought to the police station for selling bags of a powder, which they continually insisted was just Kool-Aid. After spending 3 months trying to press charges, the prosecutors finally agreed to test the powder - and it turned out to be grape Kool-Aid mix. Due to the dangers involved in on-the-spot manual analysis of suspicious white powders (read: sampling or sniffing) an arrest will usually be made on the grounds of suspicious behavior or prior suspicion and the arrested will be detained until the powder can be tested - whether in the lab or using special equipment or dogs.

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* This tends to happen a lot in the ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' series, mostly in the inverse direction, but there are some normal moments too.

* This tends to happen a lot in the ''VisualNovel/AceAttorney'' series, mostly in the inverse direction, but there are some normal moments too.

* Three 7th-grade students at a Chicago public school were once arrested and brought to the police station for selling bags of a powder, which they continually insisted was just Kool-Aid. After spending 3 months trying to press charges, the prosecutors finally agreed to test the powder - and it turned out to be grape Kool-Aid mix.
** Due to the dangers involved in on-the-spot manual analysis of suspicious white powders (read: sampling or sniffing) an arrest will usually be made on the grounds of suspicious behavior or prior suspicion and the arrested will be detained until the powder can be tested - whether in the lab or using special equipment or dogs.
*** Searching for an actual news report of this event, the only thing I found was a forwarded e-mail so it might be better classed as an urban myth.

* This tends to happen a lot in the AceAttorney series, mostly in the inverse direction, but there are some normal moments too.

** Due to the dangers involved in on-the-spot manual analysis of suspicious white powders (read: sampling or sniffing) an arrest will usually be made on the grounds of suspicious behavior or prior suspicion and the arrested will be detained until the powder can be tested - whether in the lab or using special equipment or dogs.

* Three 7th-grade students at a Chicago public school were once arrested and brought to the police station for selling bags of a powder, which they continually insisted was just Kool-Aid. After spending 3 months trying to press charges, the prosecutors finally agreed to test the powder - and it turned out to be grape Kool-Aid mix.

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* In the {{Discworld}} novel ''Discworld/FeetOfClay'' a group of "respectable citizens" discover Vimes drunk and unconscious at his desk with a bag of suspicious white power in his drawer... and the Patrician has been recently poisoned with arsenic. Vimes wakes up and quickly eats the evidence. [[spoiler:It was just sugar, he hid the actual arsenic that had been planted in his desk to frame him and then faked being drunk.]]

* One episode of ''TheDrewCareyShow'' had Drew's being investigated on suspicion of being a junkie. The white powder on Drew's coffee table is revealed to be powdered sugar from an extraordinary quantity of donuts, and one police officer found a professional-grade scale thinking it was being used to make meth, when Drew was trying to sue prove that Quarter Pounders weigh less than a quarter pound in order to file a lawsuit.

* n the {{Discworld}} novel ''Discworld/FeetOfClay'' a group of "respectable citizens" discover Vimes drunk and unconscious at his desk with a bag of suspicious white power in his drawer... and the Patrician has been recently poisoned with arsenic. Vimes wakes up and quickly eats the evidence. [[spoiler:It was just sugar, he hid the actual arsenic that had been planted in his desk to frame him and then faked being drunk.]]

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