So get this: A woman in Atlanta calls the cops to report her car stolen. Shortly after, police officers show up at her house and arrest her on charges of aggravated battery. Except they’ve got the wrong woman. The source of the confusion? Both the woman with the stolen car and the woman who committed the battery have the same first name.
Yep, you heard me right. Not the same LAST name. They are both named Teresa, and despite living at different addresses, not looking alike, and you know, being totally different people, the cops nabbed the wrong gal. She ended up in jail for 53 days before the battery victim came forward in court and cleared her name. That’s pretty scary. To make matters worse, while she was in jail, Teresa #1 lost her home, and her car had been impounded. How sucky is that? Not only do you have to spend more than a month in jail on bogus charges (like completely bogus,) but then you’re out a house and a car afterward? Sounds like the Atlanta PD has some ‘splainin to do.
No surprise, though, the Atlanta police department hasn’t released any statements about the mix-up, with the District Attorney only going as far to acknowledge that there had been a mistake. Dunno about you, but I smell a lawsuit. And if sharing a first name with a criminal is grounds for arrest, then we’re in trouble. It makes you wonder how this could have conceivably happened in the United States. What happened to innocent until proven guilty? Not only was there no proof to tie her to the crime, but there was plenty of proof that Teresa was not, in fact, the same woman that they were looking for.
Whoever made that call must be feeling pretty embarrassed right about now. Or pretty unemployed, depending on how severe the punishments for this sort of thing are over in Georgia. I dunno. We’re taught to trust the authorities, but things like this, although definitely not the norm, make me feel a little shaky about who’s calling (and firing) the shots. I guess we’ll just have to cross our fingers and hope for the best… oh yeah, and change our names to something weird.
