Jennifer Heath Field shivered on a mat on the ground, her again pressed towards one other inmate’s again, as they desperately tried to remain heat.
The air con blew a frigid breeze by means of the Broward County Jail in south Florida. Guards walked by carrying coats and beanies.
It was Christmas Eve. Her son, a Marine, was leaving on Dec. 27 to spend three years stationed in Okinawa, Japan.
And the police had arrested the fallacious “Jennifer.”
“The truth that it was simply really easy to have arrested me simply makes you query what number of extra individuals [are] on the market like this,” Field advised Fox Information Digital, sitting in her Texas dwelling two years after she was arrested and jailed for 3 nights on another person’s warrant.
Field is now suing the Broward Sheriff’s Workplace, alleging deputies violated her Fourth Modification rights towards unreasonable search and seizure after they didn’t do “fundamental due diligence to verify whether or not the individual they deliberate to arrest was truly topic to the arrest warrant.”
‘I feel y’all have the fallacious individual.’
Field and her husband rushed to the entrance of the road, desperate to get off the cruise ship on Christmas Eve 2022.
They’d simply spent six days at sea with Field’s brother, celebrating his second restoration from most cancers. Now, Field needed to get dwelling to have a good time Christmas together with her youngsters, the final time for at the least three years the household would all be collectively earlier than her son left for Okinawa.
However when she scanned her badge to disembark, employees mentioned safety wanted to fulfill with Field. Quickly, police and Customs and Border Safety surrounded Field and her husband.
“They requested if I used to be Jennifer Heath,” she recalled. Field saved Heath as her center title after marrying her husband.
She repeatedly requested the regulation enforcement officers standing round her what was occurring. Ultimately, they mentioned that they had a warrant for her from Harris County, Texas.
“It’s for endangering a baby,” a deputy mentioned.
Field’s eyes went vast. Her husband mentioned, “I feel y’all have the fallacious individual.”
Police had a warrant for “Jennifer Delcarmen Heath,” who was 23 years youthful and almost half a foot shorter than the “Jennifer” who had simply gotten off a cruise ship.
In response to courtroom filings from July 2022, Jennifer Delcarmen Heath was accused of endangering her kids, ages 1 and three.
Jennifer Heath Field, who was 48 years outdated on the time, had no minor kids. The suspect on the warrant was youthful than one in every of her daughters.
“Endangering a baby? What baby would I endanger?” Field requested, surprised.
Officers handcuffed her and put her in a sheriff’s workplace SUV, the place inside video reveals Field persevering with to insist there have to be some mistake as she was transported to the Broward County Jail.
The reserving officer mentioned she didn’t see any warrants within the system for Field when she scanned her driver’s license, however Deputy Peter Peraza insisted that they e book her anyway, in keeping with the lawsuit filed towards the sheriff’s workplace, Peraza and different deputies and corrections employees.
Field’s attorneys on the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit civil liberties regulation agency, mentioned Broward County deputies neglected at the least 10 important discrepancies between Field and the topic of the warrant, together with the huge age and top disparities, completely different Social Safety and FBI numbers and contrasting eye, hair and pores and skin colours. The one info that implicated Field was a replica of her DMV picture that had been connected to the warrant.
Field felt humiliated and terrified as she was strip searched, given a jail uniform and positioned in a chilly, soiled cell, the place she mentioned she witnessed steady screaming and violence within the adjoining males’s space.
She wakened Christmas morning after a stressed evening shivering on the ground subsequent to a stranger and was denied bond as a result of the opposite “Jennifer” had an extradition warrant, in keeping with the lawsuit. Harris County had as much as 30 days to return get her, an officer allegedly advised Field.
At dwelling, each Field’s brother and her husband have been combating layers of paperwork. Officers with Harris County mentioned they wanted BSO to ship over the warrant and Field’s fingerprints for comparability, however BSO refused, in keeping with the go well with.
Lastly, the night of Dec. 26, Field was in a position to file a criticism, asking BSO to match her fingerprints to these of the suspect.
Field walked out of jail round 10 a.m. on Dec. 27. Her son was boarding his flight.
“They took from me issues that I’ll by no means get again,” Field mentioned. “I’ll by no means get that point again with my youngsters. I’ll by no means get to have that chance to have these recollections.”
She recalled speaking to the officer who escorted her out of the detention middle about all of the issues she had missed out on over the vacations. His demeanor began “fully conceited,” she mentioned, however softened when she advised him she didn’t get to see her son earlier than he left for the Marine Corps.
“‘Issues occur,’” Field remembered the officer saying.
That was the closest she ever acquired to an apology.
‘No worker misconduct discovered’
The Broward Sheriff’s Workplace advised Fox Information Digital in a press release that it “sympathizes with the troublesome state of affairs Ms. Jennifer Heath Field was in,” however blamed Harris County for the mishap.
“Had it not been for the arrest warrant filed by the Harris County Sheriff’s Workplace, Customs and Border Patrol wouldn’t have flagged Ms. Field, BSO wouldn’t have been notified, and she or he wouldn’t have been arrested,” a spokesperson wrote.
The assertion added that the “actions of the BSO deputy concerned in arresting Ms. Field have been reviewed by the Broward Sheriff’s Workplace Inner Affairs Division, and no worker misconduct was discovered.”
Institute for Justice legal professional Jared McClain mentioned that whereas Harris County and CBP additionally made errors within the case, it “doesn’t excuse the conduct of Officer Peraza and the Broward County Sheriff’s Workplace.”
“They’d an obligation to make sure that the individual they have been arresting was truly the topic of the warrant–particularly within the face of Jennifer’s repeated and credible insistence that that they had the fallacious individual.”
CBP flagged Field’s title to BSO earlier than she left for the cruise, in keeping with her legal professionals, giving deputies ample time to verify her identification “earlier than they determined to arrest the fallacious Jennifer.”
BSO made comparable errors in at the least two different mistaken identification arrests, together with one by which a person spent 5 days in jail earlier than police ran his fingerprints and confirmed he was the fallacious individual, in keeping with the go well with.
“Regardless of this historical past of jailing harmless individuals who share a reputation with somebody with an impressive warrant, Broward County didn’t adequately practice its officers or implement new insurance policies, practices, or customs guaranteeing that BSO employees confirm the identities of arrestees,” the go well with alleges.
BSO didn’t reply Fox’s query about whether or not the division had made any coverage modifications after Field’s arrest.
The go well with seeks an admission that the defendants violated Field’s constitutional rights, in addition to damages.
As Field ready to brighten her Christmas tree this 12 months, she advised Fox Information Digital she desires to see extra checks and balances put in place so nobody else endures what she went by means of.
“I wish to maintain these individuals accountable,” she mentioned. “You’re messing with individuals’s lives. It’s not simply [fun and games] or no matter and, ‘I’m gonna put somebody behind bars, I’m gonna test off the field, and I’m gonna go dwelling to my household.’ You harm so many individuals on this state of affairs moreover simply myself.”
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