A Clockwork Noodle

I was arrested in Whitehall, Ohio (north of Columbus) on February 3 of this year. My wife and I had spent a weekend in the country and were on our way home when a police cruiser that had been parked at the side of the road suddenly came flying up behind us with lights blazing.

As I waited for the officer to approach, I kept my hands on the wheel because I knew he must have been a bit touchy to come barreling through rush hour traffic to stop me. I knew I hadn’t been speeding, because of all the traffic. It was Super Bowl Sunday, in fact, and police were in every hiding spot along I-71, and I was driving especially carefully.

I asked the officer, “what’s the problem, sir?” I think he had his holster unsnapped and his hands on his sidearm. He asked me to step out of the vehicle. “OK,” I complied. He then directed me to come around to the rear of the vehicle. “OK,” I complied. He directed me to put my hands on the trunk of the car. “Um, OK,” I complied. He asked me to put my left hand behind my back. “Seriously?” I complied. He put me in handcuffs and told me I he was placing me under arrest. “On what grounds?” I asked.

“Did you know you have a warrant out for your arrest in Whitehall?” he asked.

“That’s absurd. I’ve never even been here.”

So we exchanged some banter about it for a few minutes. No, I’ve never had a ticket in Whitehall. No, I have no idea why there would be a warrant for my arrest in Whitehall. He put me in the back of the cruiser and walked back around to the driver’s seat.

There was a small laptop computer in the front of the cruiser, running a terminal emulator which appeared to be connected to “the system.” Sure enough, on the screen was my name, birth date, and other information, along with the reason for the warrant: “Failure to appear.”

I stuck to my guns about having no idea what the warrant was about. He asked for my social security number again and entered it in the system. The information was correct, my name, address, etc. Listed under my alleged violations was assault and battery, assaulting a police officer, drug possession, etc. There was a warning with the report that the “suspect” would likely be armed and dangerous. There was a list of aliases.

I insisted the information was totally false. I’d been looking around for the hidden camera, half waiting for Ashton Kucher or Peter Funt to show up.

He delved into my file and looked up the notes on a police report linked to my file. The arrestee had not been carrying identification, and had verbally given a social security number, in lieu of ID, to the police, who recorded it as part of the arrest report. The arrestee did not match my physical description in the slightest. His name did not match mine. (“See?” I pleaded.)

However, the social security number he had given was mine. Or, at any rate, the social security number entered in the arrest report was mine. The arrestee’s SSN and my SSN actually are nearly identical except for the last 3 digits, which were jumbled. It could have even been a typo in the entry for all I know.

So I was grudgingly released back to my car. I asked the arresting officer for his name and badge number, in case I needed to reference it (I promptly forgot what it was). I left and went on my not-so-merry way with sore wrists.

I called the Whitehall Police Department the next day to ask about the clerical error that had resulted in my arrest. After being bounced around a bit I finally spoke to someone who told me that there was nothing they could do about the records, but that they could provide me with an “identity theft kit” which I could carry around, on my person, in case I was ever arrested in the future for this erroneous warrant. I would simply need to provide all of my personal information to their department so that I could be entered in a nationwide database of identity theft victims. He gave me the name and address of the department to contact. I hung up and left it at that.

So by a short series of coincidences, I became a wanted felon in Whitehall, Ohio. It appears that these days, all it takes to steal someone’s identity is a spoken string of nine numbers, or a typographical error in an arrest report. This error is then funnelled into a cross-referenced database of social security numbers and license plate numbers. Now the license plate is tied to an erroneous arrest warrant. Then, when the warrant is served and determined to be in error, the recourse for the victim is to enter their information into YET ANOTHER database. Not to, seemingly simply, correct the error. That goes against the policy that information can only go IN and can never come OUT.

So, I add the first entry on my list of cities to never visit or pass through again: Whitehall, Ohio.