“They had arrested the father (Senior), when it was actually the son (Junior) who had the warrant.”

I work as a Writer at BuzzFeed, creating and curating quizzes, listicles, and articles that cover everything from pop culture chaos to food trends I immediately want to try and fashion moments I can’t stop talking about.

"Turns out there were two defendants with the same name scheduled that day. They apologized to the very non-murderous shoplifter, turned the car around, and went back to pick up the right person. Total Keystone Cops moment."

"He just heard something close enough and went with it. We had to walk the whole thing back, reactivate the warrant, and then cut him loose with a handshake and an apology. 

The one from the other side: I had just gotten off duty at 2 a.m. and was driving home, still in uniform. There wasn’t any other traffic on the road, so I wasn’t surprised when a police car pulled in behind me and started following me. I figured he was looking for drunk drivers, and since I was the only car out, I was an easy check. I assumed he’d watch me for a bit, realize I was sober, and peel off.

Instead, another patrol car joined him. Then 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 every instruction. When they finally got me out of the car and saw my uniform, they just froze for a few seconds while I tried to figure out what the hell was going on. Then three of the officers got back in their cars, turned off their lights, and took off. The original officer stayed, told me I could put my hands down, and explained the situation.

My car was a spot-on match for the suspect vehicle in an armed robbery and shooting that had just happened right up the road. I’d driven right past the scene a few minutes earlier, before the cops had even arrived. The officer in the next district spotted me and thought I was the suspect. It was an interesting night."

"Things started to feel off pretty quickly: high pressure, demands for financial records, talk of subpoenas and legal action. I started to wonder if he was even a real officer or just some scammer. The badge he showed me looked like a plastic card, about the size of a driver’s license, which didn’t help.  So I told him I wanted to speak with the police directly and called dispatch. 

Two uniformed officers showed up about fifteen minutes later and confirmed he was legit. The woman with him turned out to be some kind of auditor or records specialist. After another fifteen minutes of questions, the woman pulled him aside and pointed something out on her phone. Yep. They were looking for the other guy."

"With him was the local cop, who came over to each of us after the younger officer had finished questioning us and said, in a much calmer tone, “Don’t worry, lads, I’m sure this is a misunderstanding. We’ve had reports of a break-in. You don’t match the initial description, and I’m sure we’ll clear this up once we get more details.” 

Then the updated description came through on the radio, and the young officer had the biggest grin on his face, like he’d just nailed it. Except… it didn’t match us at all. Not even close. Honestly, he looked so disappointed that we almost felt bad for him. So yeah, that was probably pretty embarrassing for him."

"They discovered that not only did the other man bear an uncanny resemblance to Jones, but he also lived closer to where the crime took place. Jones’ lookalike, Ricky Amos, had lived with his mother in Kansas City, Kansas, near the location of the robbery. Jones, meanwhile, lived across the state line in Kansas City, Missouri. “When I saw that picture, it made sense to me,” Jones, who has always denied committing the robbery, told the Star. 

“Either you’re going to think we’re the same person, or you’re going to be like, ‘Man, these guys look so much alike.’” His lawyers showed photos of both men to the victim, two witnesses, and even the prosecutor from Jones’ case, and all four admitted they couldn’t tell them apart."

"They take one look at him—very clearly not who they were expecting—and then see inside: our two little boys, my parents, me nursing our baby, a Christmas tree, all the normal, cozy chaos of a family home. 

They immediately lowered their guns. My husband and I ended up having a pretty calm conversation with them. Turns out they had our house completely surrounded, looking for this guy, who was wanted for some kind of violent felony. We were furious at him, the guy I refer to as “Big Nasty.”

"She kept telling them they had the wrong person, but they insisted everything matched: Social Security number, name, DNA, even her appearance. It turned out the real suspect had essentially stolen my mom’s identity and had even gone out of her way to look like her. So when authorities built a profile of the criminal, they started with my mom’s information. 

By the time they arrested her, of course, everything “matched”… because it was her identity they’d been using all along. They held her in jail for two weeks. It wasn’t until they compared fingerprints from the actual crime scene that things fell apart; the prints didn’t match. That’s when they finally realized she wasn’t the person they were looking for. It’s honestly terrifying to think that if they had relied on her existing records instead of the crime scene fingerprints, she might have stayed in jail indefinitely."

"By sheer luck, after talking to my parents, the officer called in and found out they had already caught the actual guy, and the plate numbers were just similar. I probably would’ve been arrested otherwise."

"The problem? They hadn’t checked one key detail: his age. They had arrested the father (Senior), when it was actually the son (Junior) who had the warrant. They assumed that with such a distinctive name, there could only be one person."

"The officers turned to the man, and he stumbled over his words before saying, “Uh… no. No, that’s not my son.” The mood shifted instantly. You could see it on their faces, they knew they’d messed up. They quickly uncuffed me and left. A couple of hours later, one of the officers came back to apologize. Apparently, that older man had received a call from his estranged son, who said he had a gun and was going to shoot his girlfriend. The man didn’t even know where his son lived and somehow, they ended up at my door. I never found out what happened after that, but I do know one thing, it definitely wasn’t me. Crazy day."

"It had hit three parked cars and a woman the night before—thankfully, she only had minor injuries, and then the driver fled. There was clear video of our old car crashing into the parked cars, hitting the pedestrian, and a man jumping out shortly after. When the police found the abandoned vehicle and ran the VIN, it led them straight to our house. In Ontario, when you sell a car, you’re supposed to submit paperwork to confirm the transfer of ownership. 

But it’s not really enforced, and there aren’t penalties for skipping it, since the buyer is also supposed to complete their part to register the vehicle. Unfortunately, we hadn’t done our part. The officers came back in, apologized for the mix-up, gave us a brief lecture about properly transferring ownership, and left. The guy who had actually been driving the car was caught the next day. One of the officers even called my husband to let him know and joked that we’d have to cover any impound fees."

"The operator confirmed that the badge number was real. A little later, the officer called back and admitted he had misdialed by one digit. He did apologize, but still tried to blame my fiancé, saying he had sounded “defensive” and “guilty.”"

"The second story: we received a warrant confirmation request from another agency and confirmed the warrant based on what they sent. Turns out, their officer had stopped a kid and ran his name. It was similar to someone in our system who actually did have a warrant. When their dispatcher sent the confirmation request, they used the information from our warrant entry instead of the details their officer had provided. So, from our perspective, it looked like they were asking, “Do you have a warrant for this exact person?," and of course we said yes. They were supposed to send the request using the information from the person their officer had stopped. If they had done that, we likely would have caught the mistake. Instead, this kid, who had never been to our county and had no record, was arrested on a warrant that wasn’t his. It happened on a Friday, and because it was a no-bond warrant, he had to sit in jail until Monday to see a judge. His father eventually found out who had confirmed the warrant on our end and started harassing her on Facebook. That was… fun."

"Thankfully, they realized pretty quickly that I wasn’t their person. They let me go after explaining what to watch out for. I can laugh about it now, but it definitely wasn’t funny at the time."

"They didn’t say how they confirmed we weren’t involved, but they apologized and let us go. It wasn’t until the next day that it really sank in just how bad that situation could have been."

"The best explanation we could come up with was that we had bought the car in September, and the DMV had switched to a new computer system in August. So in the old system, the plates were still tied to our previous vehicle, while in the new system, they were correctly linked to the current one. Meanwhile, the police were apparently still accessing the old system—this was February, about six months after the switch. It really makes you wonder how many other people had incorrect vehicle information in the system."

Text has been edited for length and clarity.