If you are a law-abiding citizen, then you are probably a little afraid of the idea of being wrongfully arrested. It happens and if these stories from Redditors are to be believed, then it happens a lot.
This is what takes place when people are falsely arrested for things that they didn't do.
(Content edited for clarity).
A Complete Lack Of Compassion
“My wife had a medical emergency while driving and got into a serious accident. A witness said she was serving, she was incoherent and they found a bottle of pills in the car (legally prescribed to her). They arrested her for driving under the influence at the hospital, despite the tox screen coming back negative.
The doctors at the hospital were able to determine the cause of the medical emergency, but the police didn’t care. They sent blood to the state crime lab for additional testing, which also came back negative. The police still didn’t care.
We showed for the trial date and the prosecutor was so confident that he was going to be able to bully her into a plea deal that he didn’t actually prepare his case or notify his intended witnesses that they needed to be there. At one point we were sitting in a small room with the prosecutor and he even told my wife that he knew she didn’t do it, but he wanted her to plead to a different charge (reckless driving). That felt very wrong to me… like how can it be ethical to prosecute someone for a crime that you don’t believe they actually committed?
Anyways, he tried to ask for a continuance, but the judge wasn’t having it as the prosecution had agreed to that trial date in writing, so the charges were dismissed.
All in all, it was a pretty terrible time. I’ve had my own run-ins with the law when I was a teenager, but I had always been guilty and this completely different. To have to watch my wife go through this and see the police literally not care at all about the truth… it was disgusting. They just made their mind up right away before even fully investigating and refused to admit they were wrong.
The one bright spot in the whole ordeal was the judge. During the process, I had several opportunities to sit in court and watch him as presided over other cases, and he was absolutely awesome and always extremely fair and compassionate.”
Bad Bikes Bite Parking Attendant
“I worked for a major university as a parking attendant for about a year. After students leave, we spend two weeks cutting all the leftover bikes off of bike racks. Thousands of bikes each summer. Fall rolls around, kids come and claim their bikes back or for $40 bucks get a ‘new’ one for the year. Rinse and repeat year after year. The paperwork is horrific, and inventory is lousy for years before I get there.
One day I get confronted about some bikes that came up missing (duh). I’m accused of being the mastermind of a ‘bike ring’ when three ‘locals’ show up with fake ID’s (I was never trained to spot fakes nor did I really care) and I give them three bikes. I am interrogated and given leave with pay until the investigation is over. Four weeks later a warrant is issued for my arrest. I get a lawyer. $2k and a year later, I plead guilty to disturbing the peace (??) and spend 8 hours of community service at the local animal shelter getting pets adopted.
It sucked, but I had been dealing with it for over a year at that point. If it went to trial I’d have to pay my lawyer more. It was easier to plead to a misdemeanor and get community service than it would have been to pay him an additional trial fee (I was putting my wife through school at the time and had three kids to boot). By doing this, the prosecutor gets a ‘conviction,’ I don’t have to pay anything else to the city, the lawyer, or the bondsman. It was the best I could hope for in a really bad situation I had little control over.
Looking back, if I had just shut my mouth and asked for my lawyer as soon as they started asking questions, I’d been ok. But my job had us working with the cops a lot and I didn’t think talking to them would hurt me. Serious underestimation on my part. It will never happen again. If I had just got the lawyer first, he would have shut them all down before they could have even brought charges. An expensive lesson but I learned it well. The only people on your side are the ones you are paying.”
The Party That Ended Badly
“I was walking home one night after spending the day at my buddy house. It was like 10:30 at night, I was 15. I walked past a house party, I knew it was a house party, I could hear the music, see people in the front lawn etc. I didn’t care I was walking home.
And then bam, sirens, and police cars. Apparently, the cops had gotten a tip that there were illegal substances being sold at the party. I just so happened to be right in front of the house when the cops came.
I was arrested and transported to jail along with everyone else.
Once I got to jail I was briefly questioned by a cop. I explained my story saying that I had nothing to do with the party. Cop verified that was all true. It helped that I stuck out like a sore thumb, no one from the party knew me, and that I was STONE COLD SOBER. And everyone else wasn’t.
So they released me and called my parents to come get me from the jail.
Cops spent a long time explaining to my parents that I was just really unlucky.”
Twin Troubles
“One day, I was at home, eating Taco Bell. I was about 6 or so when the police came knocking at the door. My dad was drinking but he was at home so that wasn’t an issue. I’m not sure what he was being arrested on, I just saw my dad being taken away in handcuffs.
Turns out my dad’s twin got in trouble and gave the cops my dad’s info and never went to court.
My mom was frantically screaming ‘he has a twin! It’s his twin’ and was pulling out pictures to show, but they weren’t having it. I eventually got my dad back.
Being young, I was confused, but my mom eventually filled me in on some more details of that night:
So early in the evening, we had gone to Taco Bell, and back then I was picky and would only eat regular chips and a bean burrito. We get a few feet out of the drive-thru and my mom checks the bag and they didn’t put the nachos in.
My dad stops and gets out the car and goes to the window and asks them for nachos. They said they ran out of nachos even though they charged us for them, so my dad got mad and banged on the window. Mind you, he had been drinking already at this point (mom was driving).
My mom managed to get him back in the car and we drove home which is only a few blocks away. I went to my room to eat my burrito and was totally cool with not having nachos cuz I hated seeing my dad mad (he always had a drinking problem).
A few minutes later, the cops come to the house. They say they are arresting him on my uncle’s warrant for Failure to Appear in court. They were just traffic tickets, but he had so many of them they turned into felonies at one point. My mom tried to prove that my dad was a twin and they weren’t having it so they took him.
My mom said that my dad managed to prove that my uncle used his name and such and they got the correct address from him and mailed my uncle what he owed.
I am unsure if the Taco Bell aggression is what led the cops to the house…and unsure if someone got my dad’s license plate and called the cops and that’s how they found the house.
At that time, my uncle was selling illicit substances but he never got caught. It might’ve ended even worse if the warrants were for dealing.”
A Costly And Dangerous Mistake
“I was arrested for driving under the influence. It was almost understandable. I was driving away from a bar (where I worked) smelling of adult beverages (had some spill on me).
I got taken to the jail. And on two different breathalyzers, I blew a 0.00. The cop told me that he was still going to write me up as driving under the influence because he was getting off in 20 mins and didn’t want to drive me the hour back to my apartment or call the tow truck to bring back my vehicle.
I had to stand before the judge the next day who instead of throwing out the case, gave me a court date. Said that I wasn’t allowed a public defender.
They had no idea which tow truck company took my car. I had to spend a week looking for it. Then pay for storage.
I was left without insulin overnight. I hit a high of 680 when they finally got a nurse to check it.
I had to pay for a lawyer out of pocket, and by the end of it, instead of a driving under the influence fine I had a ‘too fast for conditions’ (I was 5 miles under the speed limit).
Had my face plastered on the town ‘who got arrested this week’ paper
Had the cop who arrested me, stop by my apartment to tell me to just plead guilty, not to bother with a lawyer, and they’d go easy on me.
It was ridiculous. I asked the lawyer about suing for false imprisonment and/or essentially leaving me to die of high blood sugar (it was several hours before the nurse came to check on me), but the lawyer said I had no case.
I now just avoid cops whenever possible.”
Journalist Pops In A Kettle
“In my city, we have an annual anti-police brutality march that usually degenerates into quite the nightmare – one year, I was five feet away from a group who flipped a cop car in the downtown core while shoppers got locked into the nearby mall for their own safety and police were shooting tear gas canisters and pepper spray everywhere.
The year before that disaster, things were actually somewhat tame. I’m a journalist and at the time, I was working for a university paper. I was following the march along when it was stopped on a major street. I could see some broken store windows up ahead and saw some riot cops moving in. Being young and inexperienced, I wanted to get a closer look – take some photos, keep an eye on the cops who have been known to be… not gentle in these situations.
This was a very stupid idea.
I’m standing on the sidewalk and a ton of riot cops come rushing in. One of them uses his shield to push me onto the street, where they surround us in a tactic that’s become known as a ‘kettle.’ A few minutes later I realized what was happening – mass arrest time. I called my editor to let him know what’s going on and was basically told there’s nothing I can do at this point but wait it out.
Stood there for the next few hours, just interviewing people as we prepared to get processed. Finally, they brought in a bunch of city buses and one by one, they searched us, took our bags and cuffed us.
Hours later, they drove us out to a station in the middle of nowhere, took our mugshots and gave us each $500 tickets for obstructing traffic. I had bruises on my wrists for a few days from the plastic cuffs, which are VERY uncomfortable.
I contested the ticket and had to go to court about a half dozen times. Huge pain in the rear, but was ultimately a valuable lesson – we had major student strikes here a few years later with massive riots, which I covered extensively. I was the only one of my friends to not get arrested that summer.”
The Camera Catches The Cop
“I was falsely arrested when I was 19. I went to pick my girlfriend from school, saw a school police officer at the entrance. I pass him and he immediately flips his lights on and pulls me over. Once pulled over, he taps on my window and asks for my information.
I just didn’t really care, knowing I did nothing wrong, so I don’t argue and just complied. He spends the next 35 minutes in his car, and I see 2 more cars pull up. I was asked to get out of the vehicle, and he starts searching me and my car. He grabbed my wrist and I turned to ask ‘what is happening?’ to which I was greeted with his weapon in my face, finger on the trigger.
I turn back around and he yells ‘ARE YOU GUNNA RESIST?’ I just say nope, and let him do his thing. One police ride later to the jail, I find out he claimed I had a warrant, which I did not.
This happened on a Friday night, and apparently, no judges were present to let me out? I was held until Monday when I was released.
The record later showed that the reason I was arrested (and still shows if you look it up online) was that I illegally passed an emergency vehicle.
It turns out that my dash cam came in handy.
The aftermath? I just let it go. Yeah it sucked and yeah I was put into the system for no reason, but it wasn’t all bad. The worst part was them taking my shoes/socks on the cold floor and the stale bread for dinner the first night.
I did make a complaint about a month later, but he had already resigned.”
What Happens When Your Dad Hates You
“When I was around 19 or so my parents’ house got broken into. Of course, they put the blame on me. A few days later I was at work and I was called into the office. I worked at the family business.
I walked in and looked at this guy and said what can I do for you detective. He gave me this look of ‘what the heck, how did you know I was a cop?’
Right off the bat, he asked if I had a guilty conscience. I told him no, his suit jacket was doing a bad job of hiding his weapon. Let’s just say this got things off on the wrong foot.
He tells me he has proof it was me. I said OK, present me the evidence. He told me he can’t tell me at this time. I said OK, well you are totally full of it and wasting my time. He had no evidence because I didn’t do it. I started walking away and I was detained.
For the next hour, he grilled me. Swearing up and down he had proof it was me. I finally got it out of him – he claimed that there were video evidence and fingerprints. I said OK, well I lived in the house for 18 years I am fairly sure you will find my fingerprints in all sorts of places. The video was total garbage because there were no cameras around.
He goes on to say that if I just admit it that my father would drop the charges. Which really had me confused because why am I being questioned if he just wanted to drop the charges. I knew my father and if I had done it, there is NO way he would drop the charges.
I had the detective call my girlfriend at the time to confirm I was with her. Now he starts saying she was involved. I was at the bar the night in question so I had multiple witnesses. I also lived an hour away so it’s not like I ‘broke into his house when I went to the bathroom’ kinda thing.
After a while, he realized this was going nowhere. Took off the cuffs and told me to not leave the area. I told him that he has no court order, I am not out on bail, and I am an adult so I will go anywhere I darn well please. He said he was going to arrest me, again with no evidence. Interestingly this entire time he NEVER read me my rights. Which I really expected since he was trying to get a confession out of me.
I don’t remember how much longer it was after that but I finally went back to work. I was very angry at my father and told him he better pay me for the lost wages.
Needless to say, I never heard from the detective again. I have no idea what happened to the case, my father never brought it up again. Fairly sure he still blamed me for it until the day he died.
Nope, didn’t do it.”
Not Even Facebook Friends
“I received a visit from the police last year about an incident of assault. No one was home, but they called me while I was at uni and gave me the rundown and asked me to come in. I thought it was in relation to someone I play softball with because they shared a name, so I went in.
When I got to the station I was arrested on the spot. It was civil but it was basically so if I incriminated myself, it was on the record. It turned out there was an incident in July where an illegal substance deal went bad and the dealer, with whom I share a name but with wildly different spelling, went to the guy’s house to get the money and a fight broke out. The real kicker was that I wasn’t even in the state when this happened, I was playing softball on the other side of Australia with ~15 people who could place me there. As soon as I showed them the plane bookings, they quickly and unceremoniously ‘unarrested’ me and asked me for help to find this other guy. I’d been mistaken for him before with people adding me on Facebook so I pointed them in that direction and they let me go.
The worst part of the whole thing was my mates giving me strife afterward for not getting a photo in handcuffs getting shoved into a car.”
Pay Up, Even If It Wasn’t You
“Years ago, we were having a get together after the bar at our place. The cops showed up because we had a crazy neighbor who would admit to the police she can only hear us when she puts her ear to the wall but even that was too much for her.
Anyways, my husband opened the door. Cops ask him to step outside. Cops notice he’d been drinking. Said they were taking him for public intoxication…on our front porch. They check his ID and say he also has a warrant. This seemed odd because he had just paid off his warrants but thought maybe he had missed one. Whatever.
The court date was a year and a half later. We had to pay bail and court fees. Before the court date, the public intoxication charge was dropped. When he finally went to court, he found out the warrant was not for him but for his brother. Even after proving it wasn’t him, THEY MADE HIM PAY IT!”
The Police That Missed The Real Crime That Night
“Walking home from my girlfriend’s place at the time late at night. I was about 17 (UK) and it is way past 11 pm. Also walking around 6 miles to get home.
Halfway home the police pull alongside and ask me to stop. I’ve headphones in and kinda daydreaming because I’ve still a good 30 minutes of walking to do… So didn’t hear or even register them. They pull forward a bit, jump out and in seconds I’m on the floor wondering what the heck just happened.
They put me in the back of the vehicle and start asking me a ton of questions about illicit substances. I answer honestly and they genuinely don’t believe me because I ‘was walking funny.’ Got me to do a breath test which came back 0.0. Then they ask me what I was thinking while walking down the street and I tell them, I was a writer and pretty much live in fantasy all the time.
One laughs out loud, while the other buckles up. They offer me a lift home which is good as I’ve been in the back of this car for 30 or 40 minutes by now. Get home, open the front door and wave them off.
Dad is there smoking some pot and asked who I was waving at. Good guy, always waited up for us to get home. I just smile at him and say, friends. No point giving him another heart attack.”
This Was Not Racial Profiling
“So back in 1999, I was driving home from a friend’s house and got pulled over for expired car registration. The police took my license and proof of insurance and went back to their car. When they came back, they asked, ‘Do you know you have a warrant out for your arrest?’ ‘Um, no…?’ I’m a pretty boring guy, go to work, go home, play video games. I don’t even drink. I have no idea what I could have a warrant for.
The police let me drive my car a block away to a parking lot, then they put me in the back of their car and drive me to the police station.
At the police station, I stand in front of the height chart so they can take my picture. One after another, police are coming into the room, looking at something on a sheet of paper, then asking me, ‘How tall are you?’ Me: ‘Uh, 6’2″.’ I’m getting the feeling something isn’t right.
They take my picture, but can’t get the fingerprint machine working. It’s an old OS/2 machine, and it looks like the software crashed. I work in IT, so I offered to fix it. The police officer lets me. I kill the process, restart it, and he takes my fingerprints.
After processing me they have me sit on a bench while I wait to be taken to the county jail. One of the officers that arrested me sits across from me and finally tells me what I’m accused of. Robbing a convenience store and beating up a security guard. I was suspicious because of the whole, ‘how tall are you’ thing, so I ask him, ‘Does it say on there that the suspect is a 6’2″, blond-haired, blue-eyed guy with long hair?’ (my description at the time). The officer doesn’t make eye contact, looks down at the floor and says, ‘Yep.’
That officer’s partner leads me out to his car for the ride to the jail. He apologizes but says I have to be handcuffed this time.
When we get to the jail, and after more fingerprints and photos at the jail, I’m sent to a big room with lots of other people on benches and a big screen TV playing Martha Stewart. I’m to be released in the morning and this is where we all wait for 6 AM to roll around.
Fast forward a few weeks and I’m at my court date for my warrant. The judge just shakes his head and wants to know where I’ve been for the last three years, having missed all my other court dates. I tell him there must be some mistake, that I didn’t do what I’m being accused of. He looks incredulous that I would try to pull this. Then he reads some more of my file and asks the bailiff for my driver’s license.
Finally, the judge says, ‘Well, the signatures are significantly different, and he does not appear to be a 5’9″ Asian male, so if the DA has no objections, case dismissed.’
So that went well, except since the judge ‘dismissed’ my case, it was still on my record as something I’d done. I had to file a bunch of identity theft paperwork, then go to court again to get an expungement.”