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It is beyond scary to think that one day you might be suspected of a crime you never committed and might get arrested. Though it sounds like the plotline of a sci-fi novel, it’s actually happening in real life.
Police officers and regular citizens took to a viral online thread to share their stories about mistaken identities and the authorities realizing that they had the wrong people. It is low-key terrifying. Scroll down to read their stories.
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#1
Obligatory Not a Cop Butttt... One day I was on the way home, and I noticed the police helicopter flying overhead. I lived in a big city at the time so I thought nothing of it until I was blocked in by two police officers...
Someone in an SUV very similar to mine had been trying to lure children at a school nearby, and was considered a dangerous offender due to previous convictions. They thought they had their guy, but all they had that day was a very pregnant and bewildered white girl in an SUV with her ice cream. The one officer came to my window with his hand on his gun and asked me If I knew anything about someone luring children in my Jeep that day and I looked at him in bewilderment (I have a panic disorder, hopefully that explains my reaction) and blurted our “I have two under five and one right here, why do I want someone else’s for?!” Luckily they let me go after telling me what to keep an eye out for, I can laugh about it now.
RELATED:
#2
I remember when my son was 3 weeks old. Its 3 am and im laying down on the couch, baby is in his rocker. Suddenly there is loud knocking on my door followed by "police". I thought for sure it was my friends coming back from the bar and they needed a place to crash, and they have done that police knock to me before. So im sitting there mad thinking 'dont they know i just had a kid', needless to say i didnt answer the door, figured they could find somewhere else to crash. Next thing i know my door is kicked down, i grab baby and run towards the door and 4 or 5 police officers run in. They search my house with flashlights, scared my sleeping husband, my 5 year old didnt wake up though lol. Turns out they had the wrong address. They apologised and a week later they installed a new door for me. But was that scary.
#3
Not a police officer, but one night around 8 pm my fiance recieved a call:
Officer: Derek, we have you health card. Tell us your whereabouts right now.
Fiance: this isn't Derek...
O: You sound like Derek. Your buddies ratted you out and gave us your number. Now where are you?
F: I'm not Derek and I'm not telling you where I am. Who are you?
O: this is Officer Smith. Stop messing around and tell us your location, Derek.
F: Again, Derek is not my name. How do I know your a real officer?
O: Boy, if you don't tell me where you are, your going to be in much more trouble. My badge number is *blank*.
F: ok fine, I'm at home at *blank*. If you don't show up in a police car, I'm not coming out.
He hung up the phone, dialed 911 cause we live in a bad area and wasn't sure if this was a fake call or not. Operator verifies that it was a correct badge number. The officer called back. He apparently misdialed by one number. He apologized, but still blamed my fiance because "you were being very defensive and sounded guilty.".
The sad reality is that the authorities sometimes make mistakes with devastating consequences. According to the Georgia Innocence Project, it is estimated that between 4% and 6% of all people incarcerated in prisons in the United States are actually innocent. What this essentially means is that about 1/20 of all criminal cases result in wrongful convictions.
This is partly the result of racial biases among jurors, judges, and lawyers, as well as police officers.
These biases can lead to forming unwarranted suspicions in everyday situations and inaccurate assumptions of criminal activity when there is, in fact, none. The result is unfairness and a lack of justice in prosecuting, convicting, and imprisoning individuals.
#4
Obligatory “not a police officer, but..” I travel frequently across the Canada/US border, sometimes by bus. On one bus trip, the whole bus was held up by one woman, who was pulled back to be interrogated. An hour later, she gets back on the bus, announcing that there was a person on the most wanted list with her same name. HOWEVER that person was a 5’4 white male, and she was a relatively tall (probably 5’10?) black woman. It took them an hour of interrogating her to realize they had the wrong person🤦♀️.
#5
Not a cop but the "wrong person" in question. There is another man two years younger than me who shares my first and last name, exact same spelling. the only difference is the middle name.
Police were investigating a county trustee who was giving people housing assistance checks they didn't qualify for; they would cash the assistance and give the trustee a percentage back. One of the civilians being investigated was the other guy. A plainclothes cop in an unmarked car shows up with a female holding a clipboard, identifies himself as a state trooper, and within five minutes is asking me for copies of my bank records. He's threatening to subpoena if i don't comply.
This isn't the first time i've been mistaken for him (I used to get his mail all the time) and I even asked if they were looking for me or the other guy, pointing out our different middle names. I got really suspicious really fast (a high pressure situation, demanding access to my financial records, threats of subpoenas and further legal action) so i started to doubt this was an actual police officer and was in fact just a scammer. The badge he showed me was just a plastic square like my drivers license, further muddying the issue.
I told him I wanted to speak with the police and called dispatch; two uniformed officers showed up fifteen minutes later and confirmed the guy was an officer. The woman with him was some kind of auditor and records keeper. After a further 15 minutes of questions the woman pulled the guy away and pointed out something on her phone.
Yep, they wanted the other guy.
#6
I’ve got two, from twenty-five years ago when I was a cop, one on one side of the badge and one from the other.
The first, I got assigned a warrant service to pick up a wanted felon. Mr. Robertson was 6’ tall, 250 pounds, long red hair, bushy red beard, and lived at, let’s say, 123 Elm St. Pretty distinctive dude.
So I roll up to 123 Elm Street, and sure enough, there mowing his lawn in the front yard is the man himself, 6’, 250, red hair, red beard. I make contact with him, “Hey, Mr. Robertson? You got warrants and it’s time to go to jail.”
Hook him up, take him to jail, and in central booking I get his property off him and while filling out the inventory happen to notice this guy is Mr. Robinson, not Robertson.
Sure enough, the wanted guy was my guy’s landlord, and his twin-brother-from-another-mother doppelgänger. When I’d said Robertson, Robinson didn’t even twig to the fact I hadn’t said his name, he just heard the similar sounding name as his own. We had to walk the whole thing back and reactivate the warrant, then kicked him loose with a handshake and an apology.
The one from the other side, I had just gotten off duty at 2 AM and was driving home still in uniform. There wasn’t any other traffic on the road, so I wasn’t really surprised when a police car turned in behind me and started following me. I figured he was trolling for drunks and I was the only thing moving on the road, so he was just going to follow me a little to observe my driving, and he’d realize pretty quick I was sober and peel off.
Instead another patrol car joined him.
And another. And another.
Then all four lit me up, and spread out behind me, blocking the road in a full felony stop.
Well, this just got interesting.
They went through the whole procedure, and I carefully followed their instructions. When they finally got me out and saw my uniform, they just stopped for a few seconds while I was trying to figure out just what the hell was going on. Then three of the officers got in their cars, turned off their lights, and took off, while the original officer told me I could put my hands down and explained what was going on.
My car was a spot on match for the suspect vehicle in an armed robbery and shooting that had just occurred right up the road. I’d driven right by the scene before the cops even got there a few minutes before the officer in the next district spotted me and thought I was the suspect.
It was an interesting night.
“At a certain point, it becomes more about simply securing a conviction than ensuring conviction of the correct person or ensuring justice and community safety. Additionally, when the State routinely subjects Black and Brown people to differential treatment and inequities, it normalizes that very behavior, which can lead to official misconduct, corruption, favoritism, and / or selective or malicious prosecution,” the Georgia Innocent Project explains.
“Indeed, not all innocent incarcerated Americans are Black people. Wrongful convictions can and do happen to almost any person, of any race. But the system that allows wrongful convictions to be so disconcertingly common–and so frustratingly difficult to correct–is a system infected to its core by racism and racial bias. The problems traceable to that racism and racial bias are pervasive enough to affect everyone.”
#7
That time I got pulled over as a suspected bank robber by 8 cop cars from 2 towns. I had about 15 cops pointing their guns at me while I'm wondering what the hell I did.
Beak Hookage 6 hours ago
"Well excuse me for being an Elvis impersonator minding his own business!"
#8
Traffic stop. Guy gave his name and had no ID on him... We ran it, came back as wanted for fail to appear at court. We arrested him. Turns out he lied about his name, unfortunately guessed the name of a wanted person. Turns out he was just uninsured on that vehicle.
#9
Not a police officer, but one time I was walking out of walmart with some groceries. As I was on my way to my car, a police helicopter was circling around the parking lot. Over the helicopters PA system they described me and told me to get on the ground. "You in the grey shirt, bald head, in the walmart parking lot, next to the green car get down on the ground." Everyone in the parking lot was just staring at me. I didn't listen because I just kept thinking I didn't do anything wrong, they have to be talking to someone else. As I am putting the groceries in my car I see 6 or 7 police cruisers coming my way thru the parking lot sirens on. At this point I am just standing there like a deer in headlights. The police officers surrounded me and draw their guns shouting at me to get on the ground. I comply. They pat me down and ask what I was doing at "so and so apartment complex." I say I was never there, and they check my ID. Right after looking at my ID I noticed all the officers were kind of confused and weren't really acting all hard up to me anymore. Then this older guy who looked like a higher ranking officer walks up to me and says "You are free to go 40ozfreed, sorry for the misunderstanding." I asked what was all this about? He says "Well for lack of a better phrase WHOOPSIE." Then he shook my hand and gave me a hug. We both laughed it off. As I was driving out of the parking lot all the same police officers and many more had another man arrested on the hood of a police cruiser. He had a bald head like me, grey shirt, and green car. Everything identical.
Have you ever had the authorities suspect you of something you never did? Do you know anyone who has been wrongfully arrested or convicted?
If we have any current or former police officers reading this, have you or your colleagues ever found yourself in situations where you had the wrong suspect?
Share your experiences and insights below.
#10
Not a police officer, but I was the wrong guy once.
I was dating this girl and when things didn't work out, she got vindictive. She had a copy of my car insurance and got a guy friend to pose as me to call the police and report my vehicle stolen. I go be-bopping out of work one glorious Friday afternoon and get felony stopped by about 10 Dallas, TX PD officers. Guns drawn on me and everything, right outside of the large office complex I worked at. Turns out the people who reported my car stolen used their own phone number when filing the report and eventually got caught and charged.
#11
I live in a small town in rural England, and we used to get some trainee's/ new police officers from the met there for their training.
Me and some of my friends were teenagers we were walking to the supermarket, because what else is there to do in a small town pre-internet? Suddenly from out of nowhere this police car comes screaming out of nowhere, sirens going and screeches to a halt in front of us.
A young guy, must have only been about five years or so older than us jumps out and starts giving us the whole hairdryer treatment. He lines us up and starts taking our statements of what we had been up to in the last hour/gloating at us "You lads are in trouble now, criminal damage, trespass, theft. You have really screwed up!". With him was the local bobby and he came up to each of us in turn after the younger guy had grilled us and said very jovially "Now don't worry lads, I'm sure it's a misunderstanding, we've had some reports of a break in. You don't match the preliminary description, and I'm sure we'll get this cleared up when we get the more detailed description come through."
So the more detailed description comes through the radio and the young guy is wearing the biggest grin you've ever seen. The description didn't even remotely match, and honestly the young guy looked so disappointed we all ended up feeling sorry for him.
So yeah, that was probably quite embarrassing for him.
#12
Well like many other posts I’m not a PO but I did get felony stopped while on Las Vegas blvd. I left work pulled out of the parking garage and turned right on Tropicana. I then see lights behind me and start to pullover thinking it was an emergency vehicle. I am then surrounded by police with guns drawn. This was like midnight on the strip so it was intense. Police make get out walk backwards with my hands on my head. They cuff me and tear into my car almost immediately.
Long story short it was another mustang with out of state tags involved in a robbery. That was an intense evening.
#13
I am not a police officer, however I was the person detained (in hand cuffs) by the police due to a bank robbery near by. It took place in Brownsville, N.Y., I was driving a 2 door gray 89' Buick. I am a 5'7" caucasian male, btw this took place during the middle of a beautiful spring day. I mention this because there was no mistaking what I looked like. They held me for about an hour in the back of a police car. After they released me they told me the bank footage showed the criminal was approximately a 6'4" African American male driving a purple 4 door chevy. No apologies just told me to be on my way. I did not have a cell phone back in 91 so I went to the closest pay phone and explained what happened to my boss, so they can call my next customer and explain why I will be late.
#14
Was the guy.
Got pulled over a block from a local McDonald’s. Officer explains he got a report that the manager at McDonald’s reported that a guy about my description tried to grab the cash drawer from a register when she opened it to make change for him. When she resisted he fled in a yellow Ford LTD. I happened to be driving a Ford LTD.
I told him I wasn’t the guy. Asked if the name of the manager who reported it was Tina. Yep.
Well then she would have told you my name when reporting the attempted robbery if I was the culprit. I had been working there as a manager for about two years and she would definitely have recognized me.
He agreed that I was unlikely to be the culprit. I immediately drove over to find out what happened from Tina.
Evidently she went agro when the guy tried to grab the door and just grabbed both his hands and dug her nails into the top of his hands. Evidently it was all the guy could do to tear himself away and flee. Tina May have weighed 100 pounds wet.
#15
I'm not a cop, but my mom had a story for this happen to her. Basically, it revolves around the show "Americas Most Wanted"
A woman who looked almost EXACTLY like my mom was featured on the show. She had the same hair, same face, and the kicker, same name. They even showed my moms actual information (which I won't list here) as being the criminals.
The story ended like every story on that show does. "If you have ANY information regarding the whereabouts of this dangerous criminal, please call this number"
Now onto my moms perspective.
She was just sitting at home on a saturday night alone, as she lived alone. She was reading a Steven King book, when she hears some commotion coming from the hallway. She ignores it. Lots of yelling. She had not seen the show which painted her as a criminal.
Then suddenly BAM!!! Her door is knocked down in an instant. About 10 cops flood into her 1 bedroom apartment, and she is arrested.
She explained they had the wrong person. They claimed everything matched. Social security matched. DNA matched. Name matched. Photo resemblance matched.
It turns out the woman was basically stealing my moms identity, and intentionally making herself look like my mom. The end result is that when they created a profile for the criminal, they used my moms information to start with. So when they arrested my mom, of coarse the information matched.....it was her information originally.
They kept her in jail for 2 weeks. It wasn't until they took fingerprints from the scene of a crime they said she committed, and the prints didn't match, that they realized she wasnt the criminal.
Its scary to think if they had used her profile prints, rather then crime scene prints as the set to compare to, that she would have been still in jail today. It was basically a life sentance.
#16
Since everyone else isn't a cop...
I was 16 and worked at a golf course mowing lawns and such. We got a call at home from the cops that said I'm a suspect in a hit and run accident because my plate #s were on the car that drove away without stopping. The cops said the car was maroon colored; my car was gray. We told them and figured that was that.
The next day at work there was a minor accident. A dumb coworker pulled a metal rake too hard and the rack holding it came down onto my forehead. It wasn't a deep wound, but it bled A LOT. My boss took me to the ER to get my head super glued, and to be safe, took me home too. Thus my car stayed at the golf course.
That evening a cop comes by and finds me with a head wound and my car is missing. I look quite guilty. By sheer luck, the cop calls someone after talking to my parents and discovers they got the guy and the plate numbers were close.
I probably would've been arrested.
BalitoBailo 8 hours ago
Is super glued slang for another medical practice or is it literally super glueing ones head shut?
#17
[This guy definitely went through some s**t being the wrong person](https://nypost.com/2017/06/12/man-jailed-for-17-years-until-lawyers-find-lookalike-convict-with-same-first-name/)
[Photo of the two men](https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/richard-jones-free.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1236&h=820&crop=1)
>A Missouri man spent nearly 17 years behind bars for robbery until his doppelganger was discovered — and the other guy looked so much like him that authorities decided to toss out his conviction.
>Jones, 41, had been serving a 19-year jail sentence for a 1999 robbery when he heard other inmates buzzing that another prisoner looked just liked him — and even shared his first name, Star said.
>It’s unclear what the other man was locked up for, and Jones never saw his doppelganger. But he told two legal interns assigned to his case about the rumors, according to Alice Craig, one of Jones’ lawyers.
>The interns brought the message back to their superiors at the Midwest Innocence Project and the Paul E. Wilson Defender Project, who dug further into the case.
>It turned out that not only did the other man bear an uncanny resemblance to Jones, he also lived closer to the site of the crime.
>Jones’ doppelganger, Ricky Amos, used to live with his mother in Kansas City, Kansas, near the address of the incident, Craig said. Jones lived across the state line in Kansas City, Mo.
>“When I saw that picture, it made sense to me,” said Jones, who has denied committing the robbery, to the Star.
>“Either you’re going to think [we’re] the same person, or you’re going to be like, ‘Man, these guys, they look so much alike.’ ”
>His lawyers showed the two men’s photos to the victim, two witnesses and the prosecutor in Jones’ case — and all four admitted they could not tell the pair apart, according to the Star.
#18
Once again, not a police officer. I was on the receiving end.
I'd been at a small bar listening to some live music with a friend. We leave a couple hours later, and less than a mile from the bar I get pulled over. No big deal. I pull into a circular driveway and then I get scared. No fewer than 4 police cars surrounded us. Two behind and two in front. They come to both sides and leave a number of officers at our windows while they run our licenses.
See, earlier, in between sets, a lady got on stage and warned any women there not to walk home or accept rides from strangers. Apparently, there had been a number of abductions in the area. My friend and I ignored it. We were not alone and we were not women.
Finally, the cops give us our identification back and tell us we matched the description of the abductors. Didn't say how they determined it wasn't us, but apologized and sent us on our way.
It wasn't until the next day we realized just how bad that could have been.
#19
Police stopped me once and asked me to get in the car cause i fit the description of someone they were looking for but they checked my id and everything was cool. i asked them if they’d drop me home while i’m in the car and said it’d be hilarious if they came to the front door with me to freak my mum out. she came to the door and as soon as she saw the police her face was the angriest i’ve ever seen it was hilarious.
#20
Not a police officer, but I’m in a class called “wildlife law enforcement” which is taught by a game warden. They have police powers and can be called in if backup is needed.
My teacher is a great dude and he loves stories. Anyways, My local police force has a way of capturing people with outstanding warrants that may or may not be common. What they do is send a letter to the perp saying they “won a price” from the city. Apparently however they deliver this makes it seem very legit. To receive your prize you have to go to the community center at a certain date and time, then the police get you after you sign in for your prize.
So in my city they set up this and sent a letter to a particular man with a very recognizable name. The day of the “prize claiming” this very large old man comes in, and is soon fighting against 3 officers in this community center claiming. He fought pretty hard thinking he was being jumped, but of course got cuffed and stuffed in the back of a squad car. The issue? They didn’t check the important detail of AGE. They captured Senior when JR was the one with the warrant. They assumed because of this man’s very recognizable name that there could only be one.
#21
I'm a lawyer for the police. I defended an officer who was chasing a bad guy and lost him in the courtyard of an apartment complex and then ran into the back of the wrong apartment and tackled and tased an old man watching Saturday morning cartoons in his underwear eating fruit loops. The city paid that man some money.
#22
My dad got arrested in the 80s because some guy in the next town over with the same name, age, and car with a license plate that was only one digit off had a warrant.
It was funny because my dad is the biggest goody-2-shoes you will ever meet.
#23
Not a police officer, but the person they talked to. I had just finished a cooking class and my husband was waiting for me. It was 9:30 at night and the parking for the class was in a back alley. Before we left, the officers turned on their lights and asked for identification and registration. They said, in their system, our plates were registered to a green vehicle (ours was white). They let us go on our way since the registration was all correct, but told us to talk to the DMV and get it cleared up.
The next day I went to the DMV and they said that the only car with those plates was our current vehicle.
Best we can figure is that we purchased this car in September and in August, our DMV had switched to a new computer system. So on the old system, was registered to our old vehicle. On the new system, they were registered to the new vehicle. And the police were still looking at the old system (this was in February, so 6 months after the switch over). I have to wonder how many other people they had incorrect vehicle information on.
#24
NOt A pOlIcE oFfIcEr but had some officers turn up to my delivery suite looking for a man wanted for stealing a motorcycle. They'd watched CCTV footage of the theft, followed him on cameras (in central London) and seen someone with the same description (black male wearing a hoodie and Nike trainers) enter the hospital and then the delivery suite. I'm usually a calm person but I was slowly losing my marbles as they demanded to come into the ward and speak to him. I'd repeatedly said that the man they were talking about had only left the ward for 15 minutes to get something from the canteen, they must have got people mixed up on camera and also his wife was currently in labor so could they kindly get lostand come back later.
They were telling me I was getting in the way of their investigation. Took my manager telling them they were getting in the way of us providing safe care in a life threatening situation to get them to leave. We got a phone call later saying that they would no longer need to speak to him as they got the right guy. Didn't even apologise.
#25
Sorry to be just another person who wasn’t the PO in the story.
I was in high school and me and my three best friends were having a sleepover at one of their homes. We wanted to watch Netflix on the TV but did not have an HDMI cord. My friends dad said he’d drive us to Walmart to get a cord, but her older sister said she would instead (kind of an important detail).
Anyways, we make a turn out of my friend’s neighborhood on to the main road and we so sirens behind us. So my friend’s sister pulled over. When the sirens did not pass us we realized that we were being pulled over for some unknown reason. By the time we realized the PO was already at our window. He had a really powerful voice and he yelled at my friend’s sister to “ROLL THE WINDOW DOWN. NOW.” By this point we are shaking and freaking out. As soon as she rolls the window down the PO shines his flashlight at all of us. He sees 5 terrified teenage girls. Immediately he backs off. He asks for friend’s sister’s license. She hands it to him and I just remember how much she was shaking.
PO asks “do you know why I pulled you over?” Friend’s sister says “no sir. I honestly have no idea why.”
PO says “well it’s because of the way you came out of that neighborhood.”
Friends sister says “okay.”
PO asks “are these your sisters?” (I think he’s backpedaling at this point because we are all clearly not sisters) he continues “well your car matched the description of another car so yes. Here is your license. Have a goodnight).
After we started driving again my friends sister goes “I’m so glad my dad didn’t end up driving you!!” And I honestly think about what might have happened if he was the one who drove us a lot.
#26
Was on the receiving end. Went to the local sheriff's office to renew my CHL. Turn in my paperwork and wait in the waiting room in front of the window. Little while later an officer walks in and says "Mr. (name I didn't catch), we have reason to believe there's a warrant out for your arrest."
I said, "I'm sorry, what name did you say?"
"what's your last name?"
"(Trollio)"
... Officer looks at girl behind the window
Girl: "THAT'S MY CHL CUSTOMER!"
Officer walks into room, him and gal walk away from the window talking. Officer walks back out to me. "I'm sorry, I was told the man in the tan pants in the waiting room" (i definitely matched that description). We laughed, he apologized some more and walked off.
I finish up my business and walk to the elevator to leave. Doors open and guess who it is? Same officer. He apologized again and told me he had the wrong waiting room. Sheriff's office was in the basement, he was after the second floor court waiting room. Good times.
#27
I went to jail for a few days when I was younger and one of the guys in there got caught because the cops mistook for someone else. He had a warrant out for failure to appear and changed up his hair and clothing style to try and look a bit different, but he happened to end up matching the description of someone else the cops were looking for. They just wanted to ask him some questions, but when they eventually found out who he was they took him in on his warrant.
#28
Not a police officer, but my dad once almost got taken into custody because our car's license plate matched one that had been stolen, and they'd incorrectly written down the stolen plate - mixed up an O and a 0 or something like that.
#29
Dispatcher here. I got 2 stories.
1, I get a call from another county not so close to us asking about a stolen license plate or car (I can't remember which). I ran what they had and it came back stolen and reported with our agency. The officer says they are out with the car and the registered owner and they swear they've never reported anything stolen and have never been to our county. Long story short, we entered it with a typo because the dispatcher wrote out the entry log first (handwritten) and then went to the NCIC terminal and entered it based on their log entry. They couldn't read their own handwriting and replaced a U and a V in the tag. What's worse is that we 2nd and 3rd party check all entries. So that's another experienced dispatcher and the shift supervisor checking off on this entry. Of course no one got into trouble for this.
2, the story goes that we received a warrant confirmation request from another agency and we confirmed the warrant based on the request. Turns out, the other agency stopped out with a kid and ran them by name. Their name was similar to someone with a warrant in our county. When their dispatcher sent the confirmation request, they used the info from our warrant entry to ask if we had a warrant on that person. Well, of course we do, what kind of stupid question is that? For those wondering, you are supposed to send the request using the info your officer gives you. If they did that, we probably would have spotted the error. So this kid that's never been to our county and has never been in trouble his entire life was picked up on a warrant on Friday that wasn't his and held in that jail until Monday because it was a No Bond warrant and had to wait to see a judge. Kid's father finds out who confirmed the warrant on our side and starts harassing her on facebook. That was fun.
#30
Not the police guy, but a bus I was on was stopped and they questioned me and searched my stuff one the side of the road for ages because apparently I look similar to someone they were after for human trafficking (at least that's what I'm assuming from the questions they asked). Weird day that was.
#31
Not a police officer but a "wrong person"
I was sitting in my apartment, girlfriend was in the shower, I heard knocking on the door and ignored it... heard a knock again, looked out the window, nothing... then came the cop knock. So I get up and open the door, two cops with guns drawn were hiding behind the door frames, and asked me to put my hands up. I comply. They ask, "are you here with your girlfriend?" I am super confused but I say yes, because I am.
They storm in and cuff me, about this time the girlfriend comes out of the shower, sees me handcuffed and is understandably pissed.
The whole time I am asking what is going on and saying I think there has been a mistake.
Then the cop points out the door to an old guy and asks "is this not your dad?" It wasn't and I said "No, what is going on?"
The cops look at the old guy and he stumbles saying "uhhh. No. No, that is not my son."
The cops turned white. They were super embarrassed and they left quickly.
A couple hours later one of the cops comes back and apologizes, apparently that old dude got a phone call from his estranged son saying he had a gun and was going to shoot his girlfriend... don't know what came of that but it wasn't me and that dad apparently didn't even know where his son lived.
Crazy day.
Then I went and got some tacos and a margarita.
Beak Hookage 1 hour ago
"Then I went and got some tacos and a margarita." I love a happy ending!
#32
I work with a guy who has dealt with mistaken identity A LOT. He's from another state. There's a guy from that state with the same first and last name, and the same birthday. He's been arrested multiple times because of warrants on the other guy, and he's had his wages garnished for child support THREE SEPARATE TIMES because of it. He has no kids. Other guy apparently has a couple. A few months ago he had to take a week off of work to go back to court in his home state snd prove *again* that he wasn't that guy.
All they ever had to do was check his middle name or his SSN.
#33
Obligatory "Not a Cop". A few years ago, my husband and I were having a lazy Sunday morning, making pancakes, blasting music, having a good time. There's a really loud banging on the door, and I rush over to answer it, thinking someone must have knocked a couple times before we heard it, and open it up to 4 police officers who push into our kitchen.
Two of them grab my husband and start telling him that he's being placed under arrest for a hit and run accident that took place in a city almost 2 hours away. Freaking out, my husband explains to the police that he was at work all night, and just got home about an hour before that. He must have been really convincing, because two officers sat at our kitchen table with us, while the other two went outside to call my husband's workplace to confirm his story.
Turns out, a car that we had sold about a year before that was involved in an accident that hit 3 parked cars, and a woman the night prior (woman had minor injuries, thankfully), but the driver was nowhere to be found. There was a clear video of our old car smashing into parked cars, hitting pedestrian, and a man jumping out of it shortly afterwards. When the police found the abandoned car and ran the VIN, it lead them to our house.
In Ontario when you sell a vehicle, you're supposed to bring a slip into the Service Ontario centre to prove that the ownership has transferred, but, it's not really enforced, and there's no penalties for not doing it, because the person purchasing the vehicle needs to do the same (to get plates, stickers, insurance etc). Obviously, and stupidly, we did not do this.
Cops came back in, apologized for the mistake, gave us a halfhearted lecture about properly switching ownerships, and left. The jerk that was actually driving the car was caught the next day, an officer called my husband to tell him, and made a joke about us having to pay any impound fees.
Kellynn D 7 hours ago
it's not just ontario, i think that's canada wide and we faced an issue with someone not transferring as well twice, in BC in the 90's. sold a vehicle, they stripped the parts they wanted and dumped it at the side of a road, and of course the cops came to us about it. second time(different car), they got into an accident, didn't have insurance etc... we had done the whole pink slip transfer and written note when we sold it and showed the cops that each time. i don't know, since it's been so long, but i don't think we a the previous owners had to hand anything in ourselves, we had to depend on the buyer doing the transfer etc. after all it is illegal to drive without insurance etc, but that never stops some idiots. things change now with the plate readers though lol.
#34
Sort of fits. I used to work an AWOL section in the army where we would collect soldiers that were awol from various jails and process them. One time we got paperwork for a guy that was supposedly AWOL since the Korean War. Both me and the LA officers had no idea what to make of it. The guy was old (I don't remember exactly how old) and obviously the paperwork we had from his enlistment was outdated and impossible to tell from the picture if it was him or not. I mean it was 50 years prior. The person in custody was saying he was never in the Army and that it was a mistaken identity. He was Korean and his name, particularly his last name, was not all that unique (I think Kim, Lee, and Park account for something like 60% of South Korean last names). Socials weren't used as ID numbers back then so we couldn't use that. We ended up just letting him go because a)we had no way to tell if it was even the right guy or not and b) we weren't going to send a 70 year old guy to get Dishonorable Discharged. Still no idea if it was the right guy.
#35
Kid I went to college with had a scrappy car that had a rope to the inside lever to open car doors. Going how from work one night he gets 3-4 cop cars surround him and pull him out of car, put him in handcuffs and throw him face first on the ground. After 30 minutes they apologize and let him go saying someone called saying he broke into and stole the car. Don't know why anyone would steal his car that was older than himself and obviously falling apart. Kid said if he was black he would have assumed it was racist cop activity. We urged him to still try to press charges since it was ridiculously brutalized over reactive behavior, but he didn't think he could win.
#36
Not a cop but got confused for a wanted guy apperently.
Transfered at the main railwaystation of my city from the train to the bus. The moment I see the overview-board I start to run to catch my bus home.
What I didn't know two undercover-cops were tailing me because they were looking for somebody who kinda looked like me. When I broke into a run they thought I made them and tried to run.
Long story short. They tackled me from the back and totally offguard thinking I'm being mugged I cursed and tried to fight back. Ofcourse they got me under control after a few moments.
After they found out I wasn't the one they were looking for they appologized kinda awkwardly and were gone.
And I missed my bus.
#37
I once went to a guys house to arrest him on a warrant for missing court for a speeding ticket. I knock on the door and ask the guy who answers if he is “Bob Smith” (can’t remember the real name but he spoke broken English) and the guy says yes. I ask him if he got a speeding ticket that he never took care of and he says yes so I tell him he is under arrest and take him to jail. At the jail I discover that this “Bob Smith” is about 30 years older than the one on the warrant and I forgot to check the date of birth before arresting him. I was looking for his kid “Bob Smith Jr”. Turned out that the kid was on his way to post bond for the dad so I let the dad go free and arrested the kid when he got to the Jail to pick his dad up.
#38
Not a police officer but years ago my auntie was growing tomatoes in her front room, when a young police officer moved in across the street.
I guess he thought it was a grow op a few weeks later police kicked in the door to find out she was just growing tomatoes, anyhow they didnt want to pay for the damages and were pretty rude to her as a small detachment until she was able to get ahold of the head office where after they called a bunch of times and were very apologetic and paid for the damages.
after that being her she put out a large sign in her front yard "SELLING POT-ted tomato plants“ very large letters and below quiet small.
#39
In our family we had a great uncle who tattooed his name and social security number to his shoulder. Apparently he had the same name and birthday as another guy with a prison record, and had kept hearing about it. It came in handy at least twice when he was pulled over and the cops started arresting him. Each time he got out because he had his social security as proof that he was innocent.
#40
Not a police officer but a crime happened to me. A couple years ago someone stole my phone and wallet from the hockey dressing room while I was on the ice. They then eventually took my drivers license and made my ID into a fake, and since I was under 18 at the time they were just committing a bunch of crimes and presenting my ID. Eventually the guy got arrested and apparently the officer that did it was like “hmm that dude does not look 17.” The dude was like 26 and tatted up.
PS: Fun side story the guy went into the bank and showed them his new ID of me and somehow they gave him access to my bank account and he withdrew over $5000 (basically all of my money when I was 17)!!!
#41
Not a LEO, but I’ve witnessed something like this.
My roommate about 10 years ago had a pretty common name, with the exception it was one letter different and pronounced differently. Fake name, but let’s call him Wason while the norm is Jason. Wason has a pretty common last name, too. Let’s say Smith. He was pulled over for having a tail light out. They look at his ID, and (according to the officers) ran his name and didn’t check anything else. The elder officer stayed near his car while the younger one did the check. Comes back, asks him to get out of the car. Wason says “sure, but way?” Big mistake. Guns drawn, everyone out of the car, on the ground, they’re searching the car. They pat him down, and call for backup.
After what seemed like forever, they come back and apologize. Apparently, there’s another Wason Smith in the area on the run. He lets us go. We look up his name, and it’s true. It was in the local news like a month before this happened. Wason Smith was wanted for beating his wife half to death, and was known to carry lots of weapons in the car, hence the car search. A one in a million name, and there’s two that lived within 30 miles of each other.
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