No, Not That Darren Cole: Innocent Man Detained Dozens Of Times Due To Mistaken Identity

This Darren Cole of Chicago is a great, law abiding guy.
Another Darren Cole, not so much.  This has made
the Good Darren Cole's life a living nightmare
Photo from Chicago Tribune
 There's a fine, upstanding man in Chicago named Darren Cole.

He just wants to mind his own business, but police keep confusing him with a not as fine, upstanding other Darren Cole, and it's made Good Darren Cole's life a living hell. He's suing the Chicago Police Department over the matter. 

According to Vice:

"Thanks to a longstanding case of mistaken identity, Chicago officers have held the 50-year-old at gunpoint, threatened him with violence, punched him in the mouth, and forced him to lie face down in the snow, according to a federal lawsuit he filed against the city."

Cole has been detained about 60 times since 2006. 

The Good Cole shares an almost identical driver's license number, name, and birthday with someone with an outstanding warrant.  It's not as if the Bad Cole has a capital murder charge hanging over him.  The outstanding warrant is for driving with a suspended license. 

This is a worst case version of the kind of thing we're all vexed with.  Somebody's computer system has wrong information about us, and no matter how hard we try, that bad info can never go away.

As Vice notes, Cole's life has become awfully constrained because of all these wrong arrests and detentions. His kids won't ride in a car that's registered to him. He wasn't able to visit his father on his deathbed. He hasn't been able to go visit his mother. 

It's not like the Good Cole hasn't tried to always carry proof that he is, indeed, the Good Cole had himself fingerprinted to distinguish him from the Bad Cole.

Good Cole got a letter from the Marion County sheriff stating that he was not the Bad Cole and had no outstanding warrants. But the Chicago Police Department did not coordinate with Marion County.  The letter, which he always carried with him, didn't help. 

Three years ago, Good Cole got a letter from a Chicago police sergeant saying he was the wrong guy, but that didn't help either, Vice reported.

The latest news is that Marion County has terminated the warrant for Bad Cole, which is hoped would improve the situation for Good Cole, since now there's no warrant to begin with. The warrant has also been supposedly removed from the Chicago Police data base.

So next you are caught in a computer information hell, and you will be sooner or later, just remember:  It could always be worse. Just ask Good Cole. 

 

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