A man was wrongly arrested for the second time and spent a night in jail simply because of a name misspelling. According to the New York Post, the Western Australia Police caused a man named Marc Smith to be wrongly arrested after misspelling his name as Mark Smith.
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A Misspelled Name Got One Man Wrongly Arrested Twice
The WA Corruption and Crime Commission is upset at the police over these double wrongful detainments. In January 2023, someone reported a man stealing a boat. This occurred at the same time that the alleged suspect called to report that he felt threatened by the boat owner.
This led to the phone dispatcher misspelling the alleged suspect’s name as Mark instead of Marc. They accidentally linked this case to an arrest warrant and an outstanding breach of bail for someone else entirely.
Upon arrival, the cops took statements from both men but failed to check the alleged offender’s information. Without knowing his proper name and address, they found he possessed a public transport SmartRider that didn’t belong to him.
The police proceeded to arrest him on suspicion of stealing a boat, as well as having a stolen SmartRider and an outstanding warrant. Despite the man pleading to officers that they had the wrong name, they refused to check their error. The officers also didn’t confirm the fingerprints after taking the alleged suspect’s prints, which didn’t match the outstanding arrest warrant.
He spent the night in jail with no bail allowed. The next day, a magistrate noticed the mistake and got the man’s charges dismissed. You’d think the police wouldn’t repeat their mistake, but it happened again three months later.
Two Times The Charm
A cop spelled his name wrong once again in the system when the man was looking for help. Once he saw his photo attached to the other Mark’s outstanding warrant, they arrested him a second time.
He told the officers they had wrongfully detained him before due to a misspelling error. Once they noticed this, they let the man go.
Due to the repeated errors, the WA CCC made a report complaining about the police’s wrongful actions. “The gravity of this should have been considered appropriately from the start,” said the report. “This matter could have been avoided if the officers had undertaken basic checks on the information (the man) provided.”
A spokesperson with the WA Police admitted to their mistakes. “In this instance, following the internal investigations, three officers received sustained managerial outcomes,” they said. “WA Police are always looking at ways our systems, policies and procedures can be improved to better protect our community and better support our officers.”