I read the suit[1] linked in the article and it's even more bewildering than you might think; it seems that a (presumably minor) charge for hygiene supplies was the least of her financial problems, considering her car was "ripped apart" and "permanently damaged", and that she actually lost her license over this(!)

And the K9 dog wasn't even the biggest problem in the police handling. The police just acted in bad faith throughout.

I expected to find just one or two extra screw-ups, but good grief, this is just an orgy of fuck-ups. Granted, this is just one side of the story, and some details can perhaps be contested, but overall it seems fairly solid and reliable to me. Much of this was captured on body cams.

A summary:

- A concerned citizen called the police to make sure everything was okay.

- "Inexplicably, instead of initiating contact with Wendy to see if she was okay, Clark instead called for an ambulance–unnecessarily escalating the welfare check without even checking to see what was going on."

- For some reason this "are you okay?" call expanded to a DUI investigation. Wendy was repeatedly denied to do a chemical test for alcohol or drugs, which she asked for to prove her innocence. Clark insisted on doing a field sobriety test, which was "improperly conducted [..] and improperly instructed Wendy on how to perform the tests", and even more damning "Clark positioned Farris to take the field sobriety tests in a spot ↪where the tests themselves would not be caught on camera"

- She failed this test and was placed under arrest. Again she asks for a breath or blood test (the EMTs were still present, had already checked her out, and decided she was fine). Again denied. At this point she was "in a state of near panic".

- Clark's report didn't mention that Wendy had been awake for 24 hours, had just been awoken, was forced to look out into the bright sunlight to respond to the officer (of course her pupils were constricted), and that she wasn't actually driving the car.

- The dog fails to find anything on the first pass of the car, and near the end of the second pass the dog handler touches the car with the hand that was holding the dog's scent toy. Karma looks at his handler and "finds drugs".

- They discover the $5,000. The car was impounded and "ripped apart in an effort to find drugs" which "permanently damaged Wendy’s vehicle". No drugs were found. She never got paid damaged for this.

- Booked in to jail, according to Clark she refused a breathalyser; "Wendy did not decline, she simply advised the deputy that she had been told not to answer questions until her attorney arrived" (who was on their way, and had wisely advised not to answer questions).

- Finally got her blood test done (results for this take a while, more on this later).

- Cited with a DUI violation. Was booked in on Friday and released on Monday (doesn't mention times).

- On Monday the prosecutor dropped the charges as there's no real probably cause.

- The same day Wendy returned to complain about Clark's handling, and "In retaliation, Clark submitted the DUI arrest to the State of Washington Department of Licensing for an administrative decision on Wendy’s license. Wendy had no idea Clark had done this". The paperwork Clark submitted for this claimed that Wendy refused to do a breathalyzer.

- Wendy’s driving privileges were suspended for a year and was required to get SR-22 insurance, which she can't afford. "As a result, Wendy has not driven since she discovered her license was suspended" and "as a result of unjustifiable suspension of her license, Wendy lost job opportunities".

- Wendy was charged again for DUI based on Clark's lie that she had refused to take to a breathalyzer. She had to travel from Montana to Washington only to have the case dismissed again.

- To prove her innocence she tried to get the blood test results, but according to the police office the "lab was busy" and the results weren't ready yet. In May 2020 she contacted the lab directly, and they informed her that the tests had been completed and submitted to the police office on March 27th, 2019.

- She never heard about the complaint she submitted against Clark. Seems to have been >/dev/null'd.

[1]: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.waed.91...