How to protect yourself if there's an arrest warrent for someone with your same name?

[JEDI]

i just saw this on cnn. they did a story on a woman that was arrested over and over again because she had the same name as someone who didnt show up for court on a cocaine arrest. This was in California. Every arrest was from a different police dept. this was over a period of like 3 years.

she was released each time after they finger printed her and found it didnt match what was on file for the suspect. (She spent 3days in jail the 1st time.)

but it sucked that she had to be arrested and bought to the police station to clear it up. the hours/days wasted, the humiliation, etc.

she sued the govt to get her name cleared, but lost in court. (WTF?!?!) they are appealing.

cnn mentioned it was first highlighted in anderson Cooper 360, but i cant find a link. 🙁

anyway, How to protect yourself if have a common name and there's an arrest warrent for someone with your same name?

edit:
fixed the title

 

[JujuFish]

Originally posted by: JEDI
anyway, what if you have a common name and there's an arrest warrent for someone with your same name?

Uh...read your own post.

 

[gonzaga1751]

john smith ftl

 

[dighn]

mexico

 

[Slacker]

Change your name?

 

[notfred]

Being named Karaszewski, I don't really have to worry about it.

 

[JEDI]

bump

 

[acemcmac]

I have a very generic name and every time I get stopped, I always get threatened with being hauled in on some kind of outstanding warrant.

Make sure you have your middle initial at the very least on your DL if you have a generic name and keep all documentation of your previous releases in your glove compartment.

At least, that's what I do.

 

[91TTZ]

That happened to a guy I used to work with. The police attacked him outside his house, and he fought back, beating the sh!t out of one of the cops and kicking the cop in the head. They ended up breaking his arm. The cops finally "got their man" and brought him him into the station. Uh-oh, they roughed up the wrong guy. Wrong address, wrong town.

He successfully sued them for $10,000 (for violating his civil rights) and the officer in charge was fired, in addition to the ass-whooping he gave one of his men.

 

[preslove]

I hope she wins her appeal. Sounds like cali needs to overhall their record retrieval system.

 

[acemcmac]

Originally posted by: 91TTZ
That happened to a guy I used to work with. The police attacked him outside his house, and he fought back, beating the sh!t out of one of the cops and kicking the cop in the head. They ended up breaking his arm. The cops finally "got their man" and brought him him into the station. Uh-oh, they roughed up the wrong guy. Wrong address, wrong town.

He successfully sued them for $10,000 (for violating his civil rights) and the officer in charge was fired, in addition to the ass-whooping he gave one of his men.

PIMP

 

[JEDI]

Originally posted by: acemcmac
I have a very generic name and every time I get stopped, I always get threatened with being hauled in on some kind of outstanding warrant.

Make sure you have your middle initial at the very least on your DL if you have a generic name and keep all documentation of your previous releases in your glove compartment.

At least, that's what I do.

no, do not put your middle initial on anything. if someone has the same middle initial as you, they'll come harder after you since they (cops/creditors) think it's more unlikely it's 2 diff people.

ie:
friend of mine is named Peter Jones, which is very common. so he used his middle initial thus Peter R. Jones.

Well, there's a deadbeat named Peter R. Jones that racked up $10k+ worth of stuff and lives in the same city as Peter. The deadbeat is no longer at his listed addr, so the creditors did a search and found MANY Peter Jones in the city. But only 1 Peter R. Jones.

I'm pretty sure they went fishing after all the Peter Jones, but the rest probably said it's a common name, and it's not them. (i've used that line since my name is common. they stopped bugging me when i told them this over the phone.)

but they wanted more proof (ie: fax them info and one creditor even wanted a notary) from my friend. my friend said screw them. he's not sending his private info to someone that just called him. he got his phone # changed and unlisted. and ingores all the threatening mail.