Miami-Area Cop Fails Cocaine Test, Sues His Own Department

Pro tip: If you want to work in a job where you arrest people for doing cocaine, don't do cocaine yourself. 

That advice might seem obvious, but the Miami Springs Police Department says one of its cops, Christopher Dweck, failed to follow those wise words. Now, after failing a test for coke and amphetamines and getting fired, he is suing the department in federal court.

The former officer claims the drug test violated his constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures because the failed tests came after his squad car was involved in a hit-and-run. His lawyer, Enrique Yabor, argues that the city's police union contract mandates that the department have reasonable suspicion that the cop caused the accident before testing him for drugs. Because the other driver involved in the accident sideswiped Dweck, the attorney argues the city had no right to give him a drug test.

"As a direct and proximate result of the conduct of the City of Miami Springs, Officer Dweck suffered loss of liberty and freedom, mental anguish, loss of capacity of enjoyment of life, and deprivation of rights secured to him under the United States Constitution," the suit reads.

But in court, Miami Springs says Dweck's legal complaint is wrong. On September 12, lawyers for Miami Springs argued that the city does, indeed, have the right to administer a test to anyone who has "caused, contributed to, or been involved in an accident while at work." The city's lawyers also said that, in general, Miami Springs is more than within its rights under the U.S. Constitution to test its employees for drugs.

Dweck's trouble began October 8, 2017, when a motorist hit his squad car and took off. His bosses immediately demanded he return to police headquarters for a mandatory drug test, which he allegedly failed. He was fired after the test.

But Dweck says he didn't find out about the test results until October 17, nine days after the accident. After he was informed he'd failed the screening, he says, he took another test that day and passed. He says he then took another drug test October 24 and passed that one too.

(Worth noting: Cocaine and amphetamines usually stop showing up in most standard drug tests after a few days.)

Dweck is far from alone in the pantheon of (alleged) coke-snorting Miami cops: City of Miami Officer Adrian Santos was arrested earlier this year after police say surveillance footage caught him snorting yeyo at the nightclub E11even while topless women danced nearby.

But for pure hilarity's sake, no story quite tops that of former Miami Beach cop Reinaldo Casas, who once claimed he tested positive for cocaine because he was using a bizarre, bootleg "sexual aid" cream on his penis that, allegedly unbeknownst to him, included some coke.