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Contents on this page were published in the April, 1993 edition of the Washington Free Press.
WFP, 1463 E. Republican #178, Seattle, WA -USA, 98112. -- WAfreepress@gmail.com
Copyright © 1993 WFP Collective, Inc.
Has anything like this ever happened to you?
One day, in 1991, a current Free Press staffer was at a Seattle post office with his girlfriend. On the way out, he glanced at a wanted poster on the wall. Thinking something suspicious was afoot, a postal employee called the police, told them that the guy may have been a fugitive and gave the cops his license plate number.
A few days later, he was pulled over by Seattle police officers. FBI agents showed up. More cops came. They drew their guns and pointed them at his head. They handcuffed him, loaded him in a cop car and took him to the county lockup, where he sat for more than 8 hours.
It seems that all of those officers thought that he was a 50-something-year-old kidnapping suspect who was wanted for apprehending a 10-year-old girl. The man they really wanted had tattoos of "love" and "hate" on the fingers of both his hands. Our Free Press staffer has no tattoos and was 24 years old at the time. How the cops mistook him for the guy on the wanted poster is beyond us.
While Seattle cops don't have the reputation as being flagrant violators of civil rights - as do the cops in Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami and elsewhere - even they have been known to lose their cool, say something they have immediately regretted, accidentally run over a mailbox ... you get the idea. In this space every month - with your help - we'll print details of such anecdotes.
We're guessing that at least one in 10 of us has had an experience that a cop just as soon would like to forget. We'd like you to tell us about it while it's still fresh in your mind.
Call WAfreepress@gmail.com or e-mail the WFP.
(An obvious aside - whether or not you want your name to appear is up to you.)
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