Baltimore Police ‘Snatch’ Young Man Off the Street Without Reading Miranda Rights. Then Learn They Arrested the Wrong Person at Gunpoint
He was later released.
A 20-year-old man was walking down the street with his mother when Baltimore police officers allegedly arrived and held the man at gunpoint, claiming they had an “open arrest warrant” for him. It was later revealed that police had arrested the wrong person.
The incident occurred on Sept. 3 at the intersection of North Luzerne and East Monument streets in East Baltimore, Maryland, per WBAL-TV. According to the man’s mother, Deneen Jordan, she and her son, whose identity was not shared, were returning home from Save A Lot when police officers allegedly approached them in marked and unmarked vehicles before ordering her son to get on the ground while pointing their assault rifles at him.
In the footage shared by Jordan, the mother can be heard begging the officers to release her son, who was handcuffed and sitting on a curb while surrounded by three armed officers. Jordan repeatedly told the officers that they had arrested the wrong person. “You have the wrong son. You have the wrong child,” Jordan said. “This is my son. He has never been in trouble.”
Baltimore police officers allegedly didn’t read his Miranda rights
One of the arresting officers claimed that they had an “open arrest warrant.” But when asked by bystanders what the man was specifically being arrested for, they just reiterated that they had a “warrant” for his arrest. “That s*** crazy. Ya’ll grabbing motherf****** with assault rifles, man. That s*** weird,” a bystander filming the incident said.
Jordan continued to vehemently deny that her son had any criminal history or warrants against him. “My son has never done anything. He has no record at all,” Jordan told the officers. “He just graduated high school last year. […] Ya’ll have the wrong person.”
Not long after, a police cruiser arrived at the scene. Jordan’s distress intensified as her son was patted down by officers before being escorted inside the vehicle. “Why would you put my baby in them handcuffs? Why would you put my son in them handcuffs?” Jordan said. “I’ll pay the price for that. Lock me up instead. Take me. Take me.”
Jordan told officers that she had her son’s ID; however, it fell on deaf ears. She also demanded the officers’ papers, badge numbers, and names. The bystander filming the video also asked if the officers read Jordan’s son his Miranda rights, to which one of the officers claimed that “they don’t have to.”
The Miranda rights are a constitutional right that officers must inform a person of before beginning an interrogation as protection against self-incrimination. If police fail to read a person their Miranda rights, their statements during an investigation may be excluded as evidence.
An administrative review was launched
Jordan’s son was eventually detained inside the police cruiser before officers returned to their vehicles and left the scene, leaving questions as to what his alleged crime was. “How are ya’ll gonna snatch up a young boy off the street like that with assault rifles?” the bystander asked officers.
In a statement to WBAL-TV, the Baltimore County Police Department later acknowledged that the arrest was a case of mistaken identity. Reportedly, the arrest was in relation to an operation by the US Postal Inspection Service that began in Northern Virginia.
According to the Baltimore police department, Woodlawn Precinct officers were assisting postal inspectors in serving a search-and-seizure warrant and a felony arrest warrant as they allegedly investigate a person for mailbox thefts. The mistaken identity supposedly happened because Jordan’s son and the suspect had the same name.
“Based on information provided by members of the US Postal Service, an arrest was made in Baltimore City,” a spokesperson from the police department said. “Once it was determined officers had misidentified the subject in custody, he was immediately released without charges.”
The police department also claimed that they are conducting an administrative review of the officers involved in the incident. However, they have not released the identity of the person the warrant was for. Reportedly, Jordan’s family has been in touch with a local lawyer following the ordeal.
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