Police refused to accept her own identification even though description didn’t match up.
A woman is suing Broward County, Florida, after law enforcement officers there arrested her for something someone else did, refusing to accept her own identification and ignoring the fact that the description of the wanted woman didn’t match.
The Institute for Justice reports the complaint against the county is on behalf of Jennifer Heath Box.
She charges authorities violated her constitutional right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, as well as due process.
The IJ explained the background:
In December 2022, Jennifer went on a cruise with family members to celebrate the news that her younger brother, Mark, had beat cancer for the second time. After a fun week aboard the Harmony of the Seas, the cruise ship returned to Port Everglades on the morning of Christmas Eve, giving Jennifer enough time to spend Christmas with her three adult children. But when Jennifer scanned her ID to get off the ship, police surrounded her and told her there was a warrant for her arrest for child endangerment out of Harris County, Texas.
The IJ reported the warrant did seek a woman named Jennifer, but it wasn’t this Jennifer. And she documented that her own children already all were adults.
“It was a really scary and confusing experience, because I’ve never had run-ins with law enforcement and I have no criminal record,” she explained. “I couldn’t believe that I could be stopped, arrested, and jailed, just because my name was similar to someone they were looking for.”
She knew the officers were wrong, so she cooperated calmly and provided police with her license and date of birth, as well as information about her children.
It didn’t matter to officers.
Hellbound and Down 