It's interesting that law enforcement claims that they need to surveil all of our private data to keep us safe, yet they can't even figure out a way to share amongst themselves crime-related information that citizens give them willingly.<p>If the police departments had just shared the information about his stolen wallet (his local police department had just warned him about unauthorized use of his credit card 24 hours before the arrest), then the arrest could have been avoided.
The title says "wrongful arrest" which is not accurate, since the police computer says to pick up that person - it's just the arrest of the wrong person.<p>A wrongful arrest is more like an arrest with no warrant and no evidence - like walking down the street and refusing to answer questions or show ID to a police officer who is attempting to infringe your civil liberties.
Real question: In the US is it possible to get your driver's license cancelled and re-issued when it is stolen?<p>That may have helped here, since when the cop ran the license it would have turned up stolen. Assuming cops are entering license #IDs into the system rather than just recording the name.<p>As an aside I thought driving licenses were all picture IDs now? How did the cop not spot that the person handing them the ID wasn't the person ON the ID?