A Black man is suing Nevada police after officers misidentified him for an older, taller white man with the same name.
In 2020, then 23-year-old Shane Lee Brown spent six days in two Las Vegas jails after police officers arrested him on a bench warrant issued for Shane Neal Brown–– a white man who was 49 years old at the time and had been convicted of a felony in 1994 –– before Lee Brown was even born.
Lee Brown, now 25, filed a lawsuit against the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department for at least $50,000, accusing officers of false imprisonment, negligence and depriving him his civil rights.
His attorneys say officers who pulled Lee Brown over and detained him didn’t do “any due diligence” in preventing the mistaken identity and subsequent imprisonment.
“Despite being informed of this mistaken identity, none of the unknown LVMPD police of LVMPD corrections officers bothered to review its own records to determine whether Shane Lee Brown was the subject of the warrant,” the lawsuit reads, according to KLAS-TV.
A previous mugshot of Neal Brown would’ve shown that Lee Brown was not in fact the older, taller white man with blue eyes that police were looking for.
It wasn’t until a public defender told the court that the wrong person had been jailed that Lee Brown was let go.
Authorities eventually tracked down Neal Brown who was being held in a San Bernardino, California jail.
Get the latest news 24/7 on The Black Information Network. Listen now on the iHeartRadio app or click HERE to tune in live.
