What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Nevada
My wallet was taken around the beginning of March, from around the front door of my apartment building. I had a sign posted on my window for a week asking for anyone to please just return my drivers license, and just to leave it by the front door, no questions asked. Of course, no one ever returned the license, so I went to the DMV and got a new one a couple of days later. I got a renewal because my license was going to be expiring on my birthday in 4 months anyways.
Fast forward about 20 days later, I was pulling into my apartment parking lot and immediately had a police cruiser right behind me as I looked into the rearview. Then, another cruiser had sped into the exit way of the parking lot (dragging an orange cone and almost hitting someone's kid in the process) Both of them came up on my drivers side window with guns pointed at me ordering me out of the car. I got out of the car with my hands up and their guns still pointed directly at my head feeling like I was on some kind of pranks TV program. They handcuffed me, and told me to not move, hang tight etc. They would give me very little information as to what the whole thing was about, other than I was caught on camera committing a crime against someone or some entity. They asked to see my ID and cynically commented about how they bet I couldn't produce one. I showed to them my ID card. They then asked me why I had recently gotten a new ID.
I told them that my license was stolen, and explained to them the whole events behind it. The whole time they were making little jokes, and acting as if I was guilty 100%. They asked me if they could search my car and I told them go ahead. They took one shirt long sleeved shirt out of an entire laundry basket of winter clothes that I was going to take to my storage unit.
They told me that the Home Depot had something stolen, and that I was the one that had to have done it. They said they were going to retrieve the victim, who was a Asset Protections worker, who tried to grab the suspect on his way out of the door, but he escaped, and got away and dragged her a couple of feet as she tried to detain him. She came out in the back of a cruiser and I was standing there in handcuffs. They had to keep pulling closer and closer, and they did not inform me of what she was saying or anything. Eventually after another 20 minutes of standing there handcuffed one of the cops asked me "Do you have any tattoos?" I said "No, I don't, why does the person who did this have tattoos?" He never answered me just said "That should help you out"
Next thing I know the main cop who was apparently in charge of the fiasco comes over and tells me he has some bad news for me, and that they had to take me in and arrest me. I was charged with Burglary, Robbery, and Petit Larceny with over a 40,000 dollar bond. In booking the DA dropped the charges just down to Robbery with a 20k dollar bond, which I luckily was able to have my only living family member post. If not, I would have had my car repossessed only 2 payments from paying it off, lost my apartment along with everything in it my storage, my cat homeless, and everything I owned. And I would still be sitting in jail at the time of writing this 5 months later.
Eventually I came to find out just recently, through the discovery, that my stolen drivers license was used in attempt to return some items without a receipt at the "Special Services Counter" The guy was given a "1 for 1 exchange" whatever that means and then asked for a bag to put the remaining items in. The lady at the register thought it was suspicious, so she called a "AP Specialist" to come down and follow him around the store. Her story is that he took the bag back to the "tool corral" and she observed him taking the "spider wrap" off of a 99 dollar husky wrench and concealing it into the bag he was given at the register. She says that she followed him to the front of the store and he started shouting obscenities at her asking why she was following him. She told him to "Please back away" and he continued towards the door. She says that she then jumped in front of him identifying herself as AP, and he needed to come with her. She then attempted to apprehend him by grabbing his arm but he took off running causing her to fall down and dragging her "several feet through the parking lot causing her to be injured with scuffs on her knees" She is never seen in any of the 6 Home Depot videos anywhere close to this guy.
After I just FINALLY got a chance to see all of the Home Depot videos from the service desk to the tool corral, to the contractors exit and finally to the parking lot, I made some obvious observations that could have prevented me getting falsely arrested and accused of this crime if anyone at Home Depot had done their job.
The lady at the service desk, after the guy hands her my ID doesn't appear to even look over at him one single time to verify the picture on the ID to the person doing the return. He's keeping his head down the whole time, was wearing completely different clothes, looks thinner than me and has a big tattoo on his right forearm. I have no tattoos. In the 911 call that was made, the caller (who was never seen anywhere near the guy also) states that "He left his ID here" and begins to read the suspect description directly from my ID card along with my name, because the caller obviously hadn't even really gotten a good look at the guy. I can tell that the AP lady never got a good look at him either because she only appears ONCE throughout all of the videos. After the guy had walked off to do whatever, she comes down and talks with the special services register lady who had called her. She appears to be flailing her arms around while talking to her, as if to be talking about this character (and she's about twice the size of this guy) She never appears throughout the aisles watching him as she stated, never appears in the video of them exiting and never appears in the parking lot video. There are 2 guys following him and a girl out of the store then the next view you see is them running through the parking lot 2 seconds later with the same 2 guys following after. Yet this AP specialist says she followed him through the store observed him stealing and then was basically injured trying to stop him (making the shoplifting charge a felony robbery charge) There were NO pictures taken of her knees being scuffed, NO video ever showing her anywhere around the guy or being knocked over or anything from the 6 separate videos I watched.
From her statement she says that when identifying me that "I appeared somewhat different, but that she was 80% sure that I was the same person. The cops report says that he asked her why she's not 100% sure and she said "because he changed his clothes" When the cop retrieved the long sleeve shirt out of my car she said "That's the shirt he was wearing" even though again, the guy in the video had a short sleeved shirt and a big tattoo on his right forearm. Then she saw my girlfriend who was also in the car with me when I got arrested and says "That's the girl that was in there with him" The cop asks "How are you sure?" She said "Because she is wearing the same clothes" At this point I was arrested and booked for 2 felonies and a misdemeanor.
My wallet was taken around the beginning of March, from around the front door of my apartment building. I had a sign posted on my window for a week asking for anyone to please just return my drivers license, and just to leave it by the front door, no questions asked. Of course, no one ever returned the license, so I went to the DMV and got a new one a couple of days later. I got a renewal because my license was going to be expiring on my birthday in 4 months anyways.
Fast forward about 20 days later, I was pulling into my apartment parking lot and immediately had a police cruiser right behind me as I looked into the rearview. Then, another cruiser had sped into the exit way of the parking lot (dragging an orange cone and almost hitting someone's kid in the process) Both of them came up on my drivers side window with guns pointed at me ordering me out of the car. I got out of the car with my hands up and their guns still pointed directly at my head feeling like I was on some kind of pranks TV program. They handcuffed me, and told me to not move, hang tight etc. They would give me very little information as to what the whole thing was about, other than I was caught on camera committing a crime against someone or some entity. They asked to see my ID and cynically commented about how they bet I couldn't produce one. I showed to them my ID card. They then asked me why I had recently gotten a new ID.
I told them that my license was stolen, and explained to them the whole events behind it. The whole time they were making little jokes, and acting as if I was guilty 100%. They asked me if they could search my car and I told them go ahead. They took one shirt long sleeved shirt out of an entire laundry basket of winter clothes that I was going to take to my storage unit.
They told me that the Home Depot had something stolen, and that I was the one that had to have done it. They said they were going to retrieve the victim, who was a Asset Protections worker, who tried to grab the suspect on his way out of the door, but he escaped, and got away and dragged her a couple of feet as she tried to detain him. She came out in the back of a cruiser and I was standing there in handcuffs. They had to keep pulling closer and closer, and they did not inform me of what she was saying or anything. Eventually after another 20 minutes of standing there handcuffed one of the cops asked me "Do you have any tattoos?" I said "No, I don't, why does the person who did this have tattoos?" He never answered me just said "That should help you out"
Next thing I know the main cop who was apparently in charge of the fiasco comes over and tells me he has some bad news for me, and that they had to take me in and arrest me. I was charged with Burglary, Robbery, and Petit Larceny with over a 40,000 dollar bond. In booking the DA dropped the charges just down to Robbery with a 20k dollar bond, which I luckily was able to have my only living family member post. If not, I would have had my car repossessed only 2 payments from paying it off, lost my apartment along with everything in it my storage, my cat homeless, and everything I owned. And I would still be sitting in jail at the time of writing this 5 months later.
Eventually I came to find out just recently, through the discovery, that my stolen drivers license was used in attempt to return some items without a receipt at the "Special Services Counter" The guy was given a "1 for 1 exchange" whatever that means and then asked for a bag to put the remaining items in. The lady at the register thought it was suspicious, so she called a "AP Specialist" to come down and follow him around the store. Her story is that he took the bag back to the "tool corral" and she observed him taking the "spider wrap" off of a 99 dollar husky wrench and concealing it into the bag he was given at the register. She says that she followed him to the front of the store and he started shouting obscenities at her asking why she was following him. She told him to "Please back away" and he continued towards the door. She says that she then jumped in front of him identifying herself as AP, and he needed to come with her. She then attempted to apprehend him by grabbing his arm but he took off running causing her to fall down and dragging her "several feet through the parking lot causing her to be injured with scuffs on her knees" She is never seen in any of the 6 Home Depot videos anywhere close to this guy.
After I just FINALLY got a chance to see all of the Home Depot videos from the service desk to the tool corral, to the contractors exit and finally to the parking lot, I made some obvious observations that could have prevented me getting falsely arrested and accused of this crime if anyone at Home Depot had done their job.
The lady at the service desk, after the guy hands her my ID doesn't appear to even look over at him one single time to verify the picture on the ID to the person doing the return. He's keeping his head down the whole time, was wearing completely different clothes, looks thinner than me and has a big tattoo on his right forearm. I have no tattoos. In the 911 call that was made, the caller (who was never seen anywhere near the guy also) states that "He left his ID here" and begins to read the suspect description directly from my ID card along with my name, because the caller obviously hadn't even really gotten a good look at the guy. I can tell that the AP lady never got a good look at him either because she only appears ONCE throughout all of the videos. After the guy had walked off to do whatever, she comes down and talks with the special services register lady who had called her. She appears to be flailing her arms around while talking to her, as if to be talking about this character (and she's about twice the size of this guy) She never appears throughout the aisles watching him as she stated, never appears in the video of them exiting and never appears in the parking lot video. There are 2 guys following him and a girl out of the store then the next view you see is them running through the parking lot 2 seconds later with the same 2 guys following after. Yet this AP specialist says she followed him through the store observed him stealing and then was basically injured trying to stop him (making the shoplifting charge a felony robbery charge) There were NO pictures taken of her knees being scuffed, NO video ever showing her anywhere around the guy or being knocked over or anything from the 6 separate videos I watched.
From her statement she says that when identifying me that "I appeared somewhat different, but that she was 80% sure that I was the same person. The cops report says that he asked her why she's not 100% sure and she said "because he changed his clothes" When the cop retrieved the long sleeve shirt out of my car she said "That's the shirt he was wearing" even though again, the guy in the video had a short sleeved shirt and a big tattoo on his right forearm. Then she saw my girlfriend who was also in the car with me when I got arrested and says "That's the girl that was in there with him" The cop asks "How are you sure?" She said "Because she is wearing the same clothes" At this point I was arrested and booked for 2 felonies and a misdemeanor.