Woman mistakenly jailed for 13 days sues Los Angeles and its police department

[Jilly_in_VA]

A California woman says she was mistaken for a person by the same name and then held in jail for 13 days, according to a federal civil rights lawsuit filed Tuesday.

Bethany K. Farber, of Los Angeles County, alleges the ordeal began on April 16 when she was at the Los Angeles International Airport awaiting a flight for Puerto Escondido, Mexico, according to the suit filed in U.S. District Court’s Central District of California.

Instead of boarding the plane, however, Farber was escorted to a private room by personnel with the Transportation Security Administration. That's where she waited for two hours before she was told there was a warrant for her arrest out of Texas, the lawsuit said.

Farber, now incredulous, tried to explain there was a mistake, the lawsuit said, because she had never even set foot in the Lone Star State.

“Plaintiff informed the TSA officers who prevented her from boarding her flight that she had never been to Texas, and she certainly was not wanted for any crime there. Plaintiff repeatedly asked the TSA officers to check again, and further informed them that if there was in fact a warrant for her arrest it was identity theft,” the lawsuit said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/woman-mistakenly-jailed-13-days-sues-los-angeles-police-department-rcna17361
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Read on. It gets worse.

[PoliticAverse]

1. I hope she wins a nice settlement. n/t

[wackadoo wabbit]

3. But it's one that the citizens of L.A. will wind up paying, not the incompetent cops

Suits like this need to be paid out of police union funds or the like.

[Demovictory9]

7. me too

[stopdiggin]

2. the big issue here

is that they didn't bother to check any ID or vital info (which would have quickly disproved ... ) pertaining to either the warrant - or the person they were detaining. Just flat out negligence (and perhaps indifference?).

She'll be getting a nice check from the city.

[Jilly_in_VA]

5. Exactly

WTF is WRONG with these guys, not even bothering to check? Is the jail or the city or the LAPD getting kickbacks from somewhere for all the inmates they keep?

[stopdiggin]

6. I'm going to speculate

that what happened here was this was a Texas warrant, TX case - and therefor the LA authorities did virtually no investigation (or effort) at all. Simply 'holding' a subject - until TX sorted it and decided what they wanted to do. "Not our call" sort of thing.

[catrose]

4. Texas deported a runaway 16 yo (born in the USA) who unknowingly gave the name of an adult

who was on the deport list. With no investigation (even does this 16 yo look like she's in her 20s?), they shipped her off to a South American country where she knew no one, did not speak the language...it took her a year to get back after her grandmother saw a post from her on Facebook. She'd worked as a maid and was pregnant.