(WND)—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.
“Broward County Sheriff’s Deputy Peter Peraza handcuffed her on the ship and took her to a police car for additional questioning. In the car, Jennifer continued to lay out evidence that Peraza had the wrong person, but he insisted everything on the warrant matched Jennifer’s identification. It didn’t,” the IJ said.
For example, the suspect’s name was Jennifer Delcarmen Heath, not Jennifer Heath Box, the suspect was 23 years younger than Jennifer, making her even younger than one of Jennifer’s children, the suspect was five inches shorter than Jennifer, the suspect had different color eyes, hair, and skin tone and the suspect had a different home address, driver’s license number, social security number, and Harris County System Person Number.
Then, in what would seem to be important, the law enforcement search was for a woma with “five young children.”
“Peraza had so much evidence that he had the wrong Jennifer, and he either ignored that evidence or deliberately misled other Broward County officials,” said IJ Attorney Jared McClain. “We must be able to hold government officials accountable when they overlook glaring evidence and arrest the wrong person.”
When Peraza arrived at the booking station with the wrong woman, the officer there confirmed she had no outstanding warrants, but Peraza didn’t believe him.
“Jennifer was then strip searched and booked. Over the next three days, she faced horrible conditions. A male inmate routinely tried to enter Jennifer’s cell while she was alone, and officers blasted death metal over the speakers and freezing air into the cell, making it so cold that she had to sleep back-to-back with another inmate just to keep warm,” the IJ said.
Her husband, a police officer, told the county to compare her fingerprints, but officers refused.
Finally, family members found that a Harris County employee had damagingly attached Jennifer’s driver’s license photo to the warrant, instead of the suspect’s photo.
IJ litigation lawyer Bobbi Taylor said, “This lawsuit is about making sure what happened to Jennifer doesn’t happen to anyone else. This needs to stop.”
The “mistake” cost her three days in jail, the holidays with her children, and a meet-up with a son who was being deployed with the Marines.
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The Police department of Broward County, Florida. AGAIN. In the news AGAIN for bungling and corruption. When will they EVER become a law-abiding and just police department?
Look, America First, how this woman’s brother beats cancer a second time. But she celebrates with a cruise and is tormented instead of going to enjoy Christmas.
It’s all evidence of God’s wrath. God did that to her and also gave her brother cancer. Think of this prophecy and consider it for yourselves https://www.thepathoftruth.com/prophecy-to-all-religious.htm
Wow. How did you know that God was punishing this particular lady? And why are you addressing it to America First? Why do you seem angry?
These are sincere questions that I would like answers to. I clicked on your link and read every word, but found no direct link to the lady’s cruise or the brother’s cancer.
Are you saying that God took his Grace away from this woman because she chose to celebrate her brother’s victory over cancer; thereby opening her up to the perils of the evils of the world? It is written in a manner that leads the reader to believe that the brother was also there, along with other family members, and certainly doesn’t sound like it was risqué at all. Why would that cause the accompanying cascade of misery?
Or is it a combination of what I said above, combined with her being “American First.” What is America First? A Trump supporter? Again, try as I might, your logic is beyond my realm of understanding, particularly when you go so far as to say God gave the Brother cancer not once, but twice.
You, sir, are a bully. You think you know, not only God’s will, but the very words that are coming out of his mouth. For you to emphatically state that God gave this man cancer is the most anti-God thing I have ever heard spewed out of anyone’s mouth, except for possibly Jim Jones.
Your words, pulled from your own black heart, say much more about you that it ever will about this family.
You need serious help Alan. Stop attaching God to your fantasies.
sue the ever living fork out of them.
Good to know that the bullies in blue still have NO REGARD for the regular citizenry.
All pigs are right at all times, just ask one of those animals.
stolen identity happens everywhere. I spent a weekend in jail for something I didnt do, AND to this day 20 years later I still cannot pass a firearms background check because of something in some courthouse somewhere that I cant even afford to fix.
Are our rights negotiable or are they derived from our creator? I dont want these guys forcing biometric IDs or chipping people either but somehow this has to stop.
sueing these losers into oblivion is great but the underlying problem persists.
Cops: “We need to arrest and abuse someone. We have a warrant for a Jennifer. Look there’s a woman named Jennifer. Arrest her and torture her. We don’t care if we get sued. We don’t pay the lawsuit. “ Abolish qualified immunity!