Brickbat: Should’ve Stayed On the Boat

Jennifer Heath Box spent three days last year, including Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, in a Florida jail on a felony child endangerment warrant. It turns out the cops had the wrong person. Her problems started when she disembarked from a cruise at Port Everglades, where she was required to scan her ID. The database alerted officials to an outstanding warrant for a Jennifer Heath. The warrant said Heath was born on April 7, 1997, meaning she was 25 at the time. Heath Box is 49. But a Broward County sheriff’s deputy insisted on taking her into custody. At the jail, intake officers found Heath Box’s driver’s license number did not match that of the wanted woman, but they booked her into the jail anyway after the arresting deputy insisted she looked like the photo of the wanted woman. After three days, sheriff’s office officials determined Heath Box wasn’t the woman in the warrant and released her.

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