17 Year Old Teen in Florida Spent 35 Days in Jail After Being Arrested By Accident

Florida – Three northeast Florida sheriff’s deputies have been disciplined after an arrest mix-up sent the wrong teenager to jail. One deputy also faces a suspension and a transfer. The Florida Times-Union reports that in a disciplinary letter, Sheriff Rick Beseler wrote that because of that deputy’s incompetence, “an innocent man was arrested for an offense that he did not commit.” The mistake wasn’t discovered until the teen received court documents detailing the charges against him. The 17-year-old spent 35 days in the Clay County jail after being charged as an adult in a sexual battery case. Authorities say investigators failed to confirm their suspect’s identity with a photo lineup. They actually had been seeking another student at the same high school with the same name.

Oopsy daisies! Can’t blame the cops for this one, not even a little bit. What we have here is just a classic mix up. Wait you mean the 17 year old kid sitting in geometry class whose life they just ruined didn’t do anything at all? Classic. Bet the kid isn’t mad. Can’t be. Seems like a pretty honest mistake from my point of view. You gotta throw someone in jail- right kid, wrong kid, what’s the difference? Why would they bother wasting their time confirming the identity with a photo lineup? We’re only talking about a sexual battery case, what does it matter if the actual deviant is behind bars? So I guess that’s why the police officers who made this very minute, unimportant mistake are only being transferred to another department. Maybe stick them on radio duty with Farva for a few days. After all, the kid only did 35 days in jail, that’s nothing. He’s lived his life in Florida, I’m sure a little time in jail was just a bat of the eye.