A medical examiner's office in Ohio will retest thousands of drug samples after firing a chemist who botched tests of drug evidence.
Officials say the forensic chemist with the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office was dismissed last week after investigators found he cleared a test sample that contained crack cocaine. Authorities say a review of his cases since December 2014 found he committed errors in 27 of 673 of them.
The chemist told his supervisor the April 6 crack cocaine sample cited in a disciplinary letter was his only mistake. But investigators say they found he failed to follow proper procedure when testing other samples.
But officials say the chemist never falsely identified a drug or indicated the presence of a drug when there was none.
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