False accusations

Have you ever been accused of something you didn’t do? How did you prove you didn’t do it?

Where I grew up there was a big sort of Walmart like store, but it was chain that is exclusive to the east coast. Anyway, one day I decide I’m going to go in there and purchase lipstick. I had a ten dollar bill to do so. I pick up a tube and sort of walk around the store. Mind, you the tube in my hand the whole time. I was himing and hawing over buying this lipstick, because at the time I wasn’t allowed to wear make up. So, after deciding I would probably get caught wearing lipstick, I decide not to buy it. I put it back on the shelf. I buy a magazine after that and am about to leave. The new security guard, who I’ve never seen before this and I would go to that store like every day!, says he saw me on tape put the lipstick in my pocket. I check my pockets and tell him no lipstick. He claims I have it. So, I take my keys out of my jacket, take it off, and say “Well, then you can take my jacket”. He says that won’t be needed. So, I start to leave and he asks if I want to go in a van and see said tape. :dubious: I say no and ran out. I’ve always wonder what that guy’s deal was. I never saw him after that (thankfully!).

I remember back when we were kids, my brother randomly yelled down to my mom that I had hit him.

Knowing that I was about to get in trouble for hitting him, I went and hit him.

I still remember him saying something along the lines of “What was that for?”. I couldn’t believe I had to explain it to him.

You know, there was this time when I was trying to get young girls into my special Creeper Van by telling them I was a security guard …

I can beat that. I really was a security guard and was being paid for supposedly being in a shed 30 miles away, while being out in my Creeper Van. Well, you’ve got to cover petrol expenses somehow.

It’s crossed my mind, it’s been over ten years since this happened, many times that he may have been a faker. There store is pretty legit. I’d hope they wouldn’t get hood winked by a prevert. Futhermore, where did he get the uniform? :confused:

I was in a store once, buying candy as stocking stuffers. I was probably 14 at the time. A store security guard approached me while I was in line to pay, and asked me to empty my pockets.

That made me really nervous. Not because I had stolen anything. I had a pipe in my right pocket. For tobacco. Yeah, tobacco, that’s the ticket. Uh oh, busted. Cops will be called. I’ll do time in juvie. Damn!

I don’t think I’ve ever put a hand into my pocket so slowly. I was so nervous!

The security guard was onto my little game. He gave me the “busted!” face and said “Nuh uh. Not that pocket. The other one.”

Sure thing, ossifer! :smiley:

I got a call that I’d failed a drug test once, which there was 0 chance of being true. So I went to my doctor and tried to get them to give me a blood test, since it was the same day, but annoyingly as hell, they refused. Then I got a call saying oops, turns out we’re just incompetent dicks. Maybe phrased a little differently.

In college a professor thought my friend and I were cheating on tests, probably because our answers were similar and awesome because we studied together and are smart. But he came and confiscated our test papers, looking for hidden notes, and there weren’t any.

Another kid in grade seven falsely accused me of taking his hat, so the headmaster tried to cane me. I snatched the cane from him and chased him around the room whacking him with it, loudly deriding him for making a false accusation.

I only found out about this after the fact, but when I was in middle school, one of my teachers accused me of cheating on a math test. The accusation was predicated on her having two versions of the test, one she gave in the morning, and one in the afternoon. Apparently, my answers were very similar to the afternoon test, so she thought I had gotten the answers from another student who had taken it.

She called in my parents and told them I had cheated by getting the answers from another student. My mother had to point out to her that there was no way for me to have gotten the afternoon test’s answers from another student in time for the morning test since I did not have access to a time machine. It would have been nice if the teacher had actually examined her logic before preparing to fail me and calling in my parents. I never did like that teacher.

I had a convenience store job once where the manager called me up and said several hundred dollars had gone missing, and that the shortage was from my shift. Now, with the cameras, and the paperwork, and the safe procedures, there was no way I could have taken so much money. The only person who ever handled the money unseen was the manager. I was just 18 and had never been short in my drawer or anything. I was TERRIFIED. The district manager came in from Tallahassee and had a meeting with us. I told her that I absolutely did not take the money, that I wouldn’t even know how to fudge the paperwork and pocket cash like that. She stared into my eyes for the longest time. It was like fiction. She finally went, “ok, you can go”. I was transferred to a different store and the manager was eventually fired for stealing.

Once when I was a kid, 6 or 7, my dad called me to the carpet for having done something with his “stash”. I didn’t know what he was talking about, or what a “stash” was, beyond a vague notion. Finally, in an attempt to end the interrogation, I told him I had buried it. Saw the error in that when he made me go dig!

I don’t know how to respond to this. Is that a WTF? Is there a question?

I was driving with a friend, about 2 in the afternoon, and got pulled over. It was a 35 mph zone, no schools, and I doubt I was speeding. Apparantly the cop didn’t think so either, because after the registration/license/insurance bit, he said he thought maybe I was drunk and asked questions about that. Had me do tests. Had my FRIEND do tests. We were actually laughing our butts off, because we had NO idea what this guy’s deal was. He asked to go into the trunk and the back to find alcohol, and when he didn’t find any, he said “Ok, you can go, I just swear I smelled booze”. We figured out later that it probably was a recently-emptied juice bottle that was in the back seat. Much later, I wondered if I got stopped because he ran my plate, saw I’ve had ‘no insurance’ tickets before, and was hoping to bust me again, and then made up whatever it was he thought he was trying to make up as a reason for the stop. I mean, come on, why did he stop me? Even had he smelled booze, there’s no way he smelled it while he was driving behind me, especially as it was winter and all windows were closed.
Also, my sister and I were driving from Idaho to Washington to meet up with her husband, who was working a construction job there. She had a new baby, so I went with her. She also had a german shepherd and a .38; the .38 was on the dashboard, as she didn’t have a concealed carry permit.

So, we’re on the freeway, when a statie flips his lights. And we stop, figuring somehow we were speeding. He stays back in his car for some time, running plates or whatever. And he comes to the car with his GUN DRAWN. We’re like ‘WTF is happening here?’ and get concerned; I mean, there’s a 3-month old sleeping in the back. The dog, as usual, is just sticking his head out the window saying Hi, but not barking or anything.

He asks for ID, gun still at his side, looks in the car, and asks ‘Where’s the toddler’? And we’re like “What toddler?” This was a Geo, two-door, and the back seat was only any good for babies and dogs; no room for anything else, really. So there was nowhere to hide anything.

The guy then starts laughing, puts his gun away, and explains. He’d thought that we were flying down the road with a toddler hanging out the window. Which, of course, was big dorky-dog’s head <which is all that could fit out the window anyway>

Anyway, he said it would be best to keep the gun in the glove-box, even without a CC, and that if the staties in Oregon hassled us about it to give his station a call, and he’d take care of it. Which is also kind of wierd.

A uni prof falsely accused me of cheating on a test because a few days later I had little recollection of the test materials. After a few quick questions that probed his own memory, he backed off.

Another uni prof falsely accused me of citing a non-existent book, based on his not being able to find it at the library. It had not been catalogued yet, as he came to realize after I brought him down to the library to show it to him.

These were pretty bright people, and well intentioned people, but they cut corners in their logic and jumped hastily to false conclusions.

A friend and I spent a day locked up in Wisconsin – my friend for not speeding on the interstate and me for being a passenger. A Jackie Geason look alike county cop pulled us over and demanded money. We didn’t have enough, so he made us follow him twenty miles off the highway to his office, where he locked us up. By the end of he day, my friend called his mother and she paid the fine by credit card. We were released, and she cancelled the transaction once we made it to Michigan. My guess is that we had been pulled over because we had out-of-country plates, which made us an easy mark. It was a common problem in those days. There is something seriously wrong about electing sheriffs, for it encourages them to raise funds by targeting people from out of the area who will not be voting there and who would rather pay a bogus fine than delay their journey to fight it.

While I was driving at a little below the speed limit that night in Detroit shortly before the border, a car behind us lit up a flashing red light on his dash. We both pulled over. It was big old piece of unmarked shit. A fellow wearing a wife beater got out and started walking toward us, so I pulled back onto the highway and beat it to the border, figuring that the fellow was either yet another corrupt cop going after an easy mark, or someone pretending to be a cop who wanted to rob us. Either way, it didn’t make much sense to wait around to find out.

After spending the summer travelling throughout the USA by car, I returned home to find a warrant for my arrest in southern Colorado for bouncing a cheque. My bank had no record of the cheque being tendered to it, so I called up the sheriff and asked if the cheque had been presented to a bank. He looked into it and called back to tell me that the recipient had presented it to a train station. We discussed the difference between a bank and a train station, and the sheriff was kind enough to arrange for the charge to be dropped and the cheque to be tendered at a bank.

Gotta love travelling in a foreign country.

The weirdest traffic stop of my life happened in Raleigh NC. I was driving home from the grocery store, obeying all the rules, when I get the blue lights. I’m sitting there waiting for hime to run my papers, watching my food melt because my AC didn’t work, racking my brain for anything suspicious I may have done. The cop comes back and starts asking me all kinds of questions.
How do you say this last name? (I say it nice and slow)
What kind of name is it? (Italian)
Where are you from? (NY, originally)
Is this really your address? (Yes)
Do you really live there? (Yes)
How many other people live there? (1, my GF)
Are you sure? (Yes)
So, if we went there right now, you’re saying there would only be one other person there? (Yes, unless she went out)
Do any other people stay at your house? (No)
Maybe relatives? (No)
Where do you work? (Boring materials company)
Does your GF work? (Yes, boring engineering company)

The whole time, he’s giving me the “Oh really?” eyebrows and the most unbelievably sarcastic tone of voice. Also, he keeps addressing me as Mr. “sterotypical Mexican last name which starts with the same letter” instead of my actual name. Think “Valdez” instead of “Verdi”.

Finally he lets me go. As I retell the story at home, it occurs to me: I had been accused of being an illegal Mexican immigrant. Absolutely bizarre.

Were you expelled? I can’t imagine that sat well.

Of course I was not expelled. He apologized for making the false accusation and for attempting to assault me with the cane.

I was accused of sexual harassment by an asshole co-worker once. He claimed that I tried to kiss him, he rebuffed me, and then I was mean to him after that. They started an investigation. After the investigation, I was cleared and he was advised to stop being such an asshole, after which he put in his notice and left. It was very stressful for me, but I couldn’t see how I could be found guilty of doing something that I didn’t do, so I tried to not worry too much about it.

In high school, I couldn’t think of anything to write as a conclusion. So, I wrote some bs. It was basically five different ways of saying 'This is what happened in the Industrial Revolution!". Literally. Not what happened, but that there a revolution of the industrial nature. My teacher claimed I stole it from an encyclopedia. I wasn’t annoyed that he thought I stole it, but it was the crappiest thing I ever written. It made me wonder if he was raving about that blab if I was in a special ed class.