Apparently faulty tests led to a man being jailed for four days for a substance Buncombe County sheriff's deputies thought was cocaine but turned out to be tortilla dough and other food, Sheriff Van Duncan said Monday.Facing pressure from local elected officials and Latino advocates, Duncan responded to allegations that deputies acted improperly or with racial bias in charging Antonio Hernandez Carranza, 45, of Carson, Calif., with possession of 91 pounds of cocaine.

Duncan and his spokesman Lt. Randy Sorrells said they couldn't think of anything deputies should have done differently in the arrest that began when an officer encountered Hernandez early May 1, stopped with his hazard lights flashing in an Interstate 240 travel lane.

If Hernandez, who said he got lost in Asheville after overshooting Johnson City, Tenn., where his sister lives, had cooperated instead of driving off, nothing bad would likely have happened, they said.

“When you break down the steps the officers took, everything they did was legal and reasonable,” the sheriff said.

Local Latino advocates, though, questioned how the tests were conducted that led to Hernandez being jailed on a total bond of $300,000 and being told he could spend up to 40 years in prison.
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