NY: They got the wrong guy! Syracuse police arrest wrong registrant and pay $130,000
Who said the registry is an effective law enforcement tool? How about when the police themselves mistake the identities of people on the registry?
In a stirring endorsement of law enforcement efficiency and a perfect illustration of how the registry can lead to tragic mistakes, the City of Syracuse has agreed to pay $130,000 to a man who was wrongly arrested in New York City, transported several hours north, and processed for failure to register. Only they had the wrong person!
Syracuse police confused “Kenneth Hicks” with “Kenneth Houck”. Turns out Kenneth Houck had died three years earlier, so he had a pretty valid reason for not registering. Only the registry didn’t know that, so police went out and picked up the next best thing. A guy whose name was close enough.
The whole thing raises an important policy question: if trained officers, armed with badges, access to records, and presumably reading glasses, can’t correctly identify the right person — how effective is the registry really supposed to be in the hands of the public?
In the end, Syracuse did what governments do best when accountability is unavoidable: wrote a check and moved on.
Discover more from Florida Action Committee (FAC)
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
#1 Surprised as Hell he got paid, most registrants, the cops would just say “Oh well, we made a mistake, deal with it”.
#2 If in Florida, that arrest, even after being dropped, would cause you to never be removed from the registry most likely because of the way the law is written for “Any” arrests.
#3 This is the third article in a few days that is giving us vibes of Gloom and doom scenarios. What is causing all these new attacks on registered persons who have LONG finished their sentences and have not offended for decades.
At least he got something given today courts are hesitant to pay someone for the wrong doing of LE (though that is changing depending on the court and the action taken by LE). They cannot just say they were following orders (Nuremburg defense) when they have the ability to double check the destination (e.g., the person) they are working on to ensure it is valid. A three hour drive for someone without working with local LE on it is odd when they could have and should have. Given LE reps the area they are from, this is good on the council to recognize the mistake, own it, and hopefully put pressure on local LE to learn from the mistake.
According to the original article, the officers’ legal excuse was that there was a man with the same first name and a “similar last name.” How are “Hicks” and “Houck” similar? They both start with the same letter and that’s it. If that’s the highest level of literacy we can expect of the THREE police officers who drove many hours from Syracuse to NYC to bust down this guy’s door in the early morning hours, then the people of the State of New York are in a lot of trouble.
Let me get this straight. It took Law enforcement 3 years to realize that the dead guy didn’t register.
Yeah, it’s a current level of stupidity trend in this country David.