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The Denver Police keep arresting the wrong people.<\/p>\nThe Denver Police keep arresting the wrong people.<\/p>\n
Since 2002, at least 219 people have been arrested and jailed<\/a> in Denver based on mistaken identity. Either they were unlucky enough to have a similar name to a suspect, or they were simply picked up by police mistaking them for another person.<\/p>\n Susan Greene and her fellow reporters at the Denver Post<\/em> have covered this issue for years<\/a>, and yet it won’t go away. Greene wrote about it again this weekend<\/a>, pointing out how the problem seems to persist, despite police officials and politicians’ best lip service about fixing the issue.<\/p>\n Greene cites examples of women who’ve gotten arrested, even when the warrant specified a man, as well as a woman who is upset because “her husband keeps getting arrested for another person named Vasquez.” <\/span>She points out that for every hour the wrong person spends in jail, missing work and family obligations, the injustice compounds — and taxpayers ultimately foot the bill in civil lawsuits. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n This isn’t a problem unique to Denver — it’s just that Post <\/em>reporters are doing a good job uncovering these issues, and keeping up the pressure to get them fixed. Police officers work hard, and their jobs are complicated. Human errors are bound to happen, but when a city like Denver shows a pattern of marked sloppiness like this, we’re looking not just at human error and negligence, but a system-wide breakdown.<\/p>\n