A 25-year-old Black man was detained for six days after officers failed to realise he was not the 51-year-old white man they were looking for, a new lawsuit has claimed.
Shane Lee Brown was arrested in January 2020 during a traffic stop in Las Vegas when officers found a federal warrant they believed to match his name.
However, records show that the warrant was in fact for a man named Shane Neal Brown, who is more than twice Brown's age and utterly different in appearance.
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Whereas the younger Brown is a Black man with close-cropped hair, brown eyes and no beard, the elder Brown is described as a white man with brown hair, blue eyes and a beard.
Despite the mix up, Brown was detained in a Henderson, Nevada, prison for six days without charge, before eventually being released after his lawyer asked a judge to compare Brown's mugshot with the image they had on file for the true suspect.
The younger Brown is now suing Las Vegas and Henderson police for $500,000 in damages, claiming that officers failed to perform 'due diligence' to make sure they had arrested the correct suspect.
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'During his unlawful detention, Shane Lee Brown repeatedly explained to numerous unknown Henderson police officers and supervisors that he was not the 49-year-old white 'Shane Brown' who was the subject of the felony warrant,' the lawsuit states.
'Had any of the LVMPD police or corrections officers performed any due diligence, such as comparing Shane Lee Brown’s booking photo against the existing mug shot... they would have easily determined that Shane Lee Brown has been misidentified as the subject of the warrant.'
A spokesperson for Henderson police told NBC News that the younger Brown had been 'correctly arrested' for driving with a suspended license, and stated that he had 'not presented all the facts and circumstances behind his lawful and proper arrest' in the lawsuit. The spokesperson did not comment on the case of mistaken identity.
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It was later revealed that the real Shane Neal Brown had been arrested in San Bernardino County, California, though it's unclear whether he was already in custody at the time of the younger Brown's arrest.
According to BBC News, the actual suspect has a lengthy criminal record, having first spent time in prison on a felony conviction in 1994 – more than a year before the younger Brown was even born.
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Topics: US News
Hannah Smith