Jennifer Heath Field shivered on a mat on the ground, her again pressed towards one other inmate’s again, as they desperately tried to remain heat. The air con blew a frigid breeze by means of the Broward County Jail in south Florida. Guards walked by carrying coats and beanies.
It was Christmas Eve. Her son, a Marine, was leaving on Dec. 27 to spend three years stationed in Okanawa, Japan.
And the police had arrested the improper “Jennifer.”
“The fact that it was just so easy to have arrested me just makes you question how many more people [are] out there like this,” Field advised Fox Information Digital, sitting in her Texas residence two years after she was arrested and jailed for 3 nights on another person’s warrant.
Field is now suing the Broward Sheriff’s Workplace, alleging deputies violated her Fourth Modification rights towards unreasonable search and seizure after they did not do “basic due diligence to confirm whether the person they planned to arrest was actually subject to the arrest warrant.”
‘I think y’all have the improper particular person.’
Field and her husband rushed to the entrance of the road, wanting to get off the cruise ship on Christmas Eve 2022. They’d simply spent six days at sea with Field’s brother, celebrating his second restoration from most cancers. Now, Field wished to get residence to rejoice Christmas along with her children, the final time for at the very least three years the household would all be collectively earlier than her son left for Okinawa.
However when she scanned her badge to disembark, employees mentioned safety wanted to satisfy with Field. Quickly, police and Customs and Border Safety surrounded Field and her husband.
“They asked if I was Jennifer Heath,” she recalled. Field saved Heath as her center title after marrying her husband.
She repeatedly requested the regulation enforcement officers standing round her what was happening. Finally, they mentioned they’d a warrant for her from Harris County, Texas.
“It’s for endangering a child,” a deputy mentioned.
Field’s eyes went large. Her husband mentioned, “I think y’all have the wrong person.”
Police had a warrant for “Jennifer Delcarmen Heath,” who was 23 years youthful and almost half a foot shorter than the “Jennifer” who had simply gotten off a cruise ship.
In response to court docket filings from July 2022, Jennifer Delcarmen Heath was accused of endangering her kids, ages 1 and three.
Jennifer Heath Field, who was 48 years previous on the time, had no minor kids. The suspect on the warrant was youthful than one in every of her daughters.
“Endangering a child? What child would I endanger?” Field requested, surprised.
Officers handcuffed her and put her in a sheriff’s workplace SUV, the place inside video reveals Field persevering with to insist there have to be some mistake as she was transported to the Broward County Jail.
The reserving officer mentioned she didn’t see any warrants within the system for Field when she scanned her driver’s license, however Deputy Peter Peraza insisted that they guide her anyway, in response to the lawsuit filed towards the sheriff’s workplace, Peraza and different deputies and corrections employees.
Field’s attorneys on the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit civil liberties regulation agency, mentioned Broward County deputies neglected at the very least 10 important discrepancies between Field and the topic of the warrant, together with the huge age and peak disparities, totally different Social Safety and FBI numbers and contrasting eye, hair and pores and skin colours. The one info that implicated Field was a duplicate of her DMV picture that had been hooked up to the warrant.
Field felt humiliated and terrified as she was strip searched, given a jail uniform and positioned in a chilly, soiled cell, the place she mentioned she witnessed steady screaming and violence within the adjoining males’s space.
She wakened Christmas morning after a stressed night time shivering on the ground subsequent to a stranger and was denied bond as a result of the opposite “Jennifer” had an extradition warrant, in response to the lawsuit. Harris County had as much as 30 days to return get her, an officer allegedly advised Field.
At residence, each Field’s brother and her husband have been combating layers of paperwork. Officers with Harris County mentioned they wanted BSO to ship over the warrant and Field’s fingerprints for comparability, however BSO refused, in response to the go well with.
Lastly, the night of Dec. 26, Field was in a position to file a grievance, asking BSO to match her fingerprints to these of the suspect.
Field walked out of jail round 10 a.m. on Dec. 27. Her son was boarding his flight.
“They took from me things that I will never get back,” Field mentioned. “I’ll never get that time back with my kids. I’ll never get to have that opportunity to have those memories.”
She recalled speaking to the officer who escorted her out of the detention middle about all of the issues she had missed out on over the vacations. His demeanor began “completely arrogant,” she mentioned, however softened when she advised him she didn’t get to see her son earlier than he left for the Marine Corps.
“‘Things happen,’” Field remembered the officer saying.
That was the closest she ever acquired to an apology.
‘No employee misconduct found’
The Broward Sheriff’s Workplace advised Fox Information Digital in a press release that it “sympathizes with the difficult situation Ms. Jennifer Heath Box was in,” however blamed Harris County for the mishap.
“Had it not been for the arrest warrant filed by the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, Customs and Border Patrol would not have flagged Ms. Box, BSO would not have been notified, and she would not have been arrested,” a spokesperson wrote.
The assertion added that the “actions of the BSO deputy involved in arresting Ms. Box were reviewed by the Broward Sheriff’s Office Internal Affairs Division, and no employee misconduct was found.”
Institute for Justice legal professional Jared McClain mentioned that whereas Harris County and CBP additionally made errors within the case, it “does not excuse the behavior of Officer Peraza and the Broward County Sheriff’s Office.”
“They had a duty to ensure that the person they were arresting was actually the subject of the warrant–especially in the face of Jennifer’s repeated and credible insistence that they had the wrong person.”
CBP flagged Field’s title to BSO earlier than she left for the cruise, in response to her legal professionals, giving deputies ample time to substantiate her id “before they decided to arrest the wrong Jennifer.”
BSO made related errors in at the very least two different mistaken id arrests, together with one wherein a person spent 5 days in jail earlier than police ran his fingerprints and confirmed he was the improper particular person, in response to the go well with.
“Despite this history of jailing innocent people who share a name with someone with an outstanding warrant, Broward County failed to adequately train its officers or implement new policies, practices, or customs ensuring that BSO staff verify the identities of arrestees,” the go well with alleges.
BSO didn’t reply Fox’s query about whether or not the division had made any coverage adjustments after Field’s arrest.
The go well with seeks an admission that the defendants violated Field’s constitutional rights, in addition to damages.
As Field ready to embellish her Christmas tree this yr, she advised Fox Information Digital she desires to see extra checks and balances put in place so nobody else endures what she went by means of.
“I want to hold those people accountable,” she mentioned. “You’re messing with people’s lives. It’s not just [fun and games] or whatever and, ‘I’m gonna put someone behind bars, I’m gonna check off the box, and I’m gonna go home to my family.’ You hurt so many people in this situation besides just myself.”
