“It Was An Interesting Night”: 41 Times Police Realized They Had The Wrong Person

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.

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.

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🤦‍♀️.

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.".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.