I got accused of shooting up construction equipment, arson and a whole string of other expensive vandalism at an isolated construction site 15 miles from home. The police swooped in while I was at work at the local supermarket and took me into the office for questioning. I had never been to the place they were talking about and didn’t know what they were talking about. Someone said they were 100% certain that they saw much truck and someone that looked like me at the site right when it happened. The thing was, I was at work when it happened and I just showed them my time card. The manager confirmed it. Throwing bad logic after bad logic, they said AH HAH, it must have been your younger brother. He borrowed your truck and did it. That is when my policy of being a real dick paid off. I wouldn’t even let my little brother ride in cab of my truck ran or shine let alone borrow it. If he got to ride in it at all, it was in the bed and everyone knew it.
That should have taken care of that but the police went to my house right after and seized all the guns for ballistic testing. We hadn’t shot in a while and my shotguns were 12 gauges instead of the 20 gauge shells they found at the seen.
The episode really made me suspicious of anything less than iron-clad accusation and I know the problems just a false accusation can bring to someone. My case should have taken less than 5 minutes to get out of with firm proof in hand. It still didn’t take that long but it took a while to get the guns back and the whole thing was a pisser.
When I was in 7th grade, I was accused of cheating on my algebra homework by some girls who hated me. The teacher took their word over mine (since there were three of them and only one of me), failed me on all homework submitted to date, and submitted my name for disciplinary action. At the time, he didn’t tell me who had accused me or how many there were. All he told me was that I’d been turned in for cheating and he found the accusation to be credible.
My mother was furious at the accusation. She’d seen me do much of the homework, so she knew there was little chance I was lying. When we spoke to the guidance counselor, she showed him my past homework, and asked what evidence there was against me. At that point, it came up that three girls (he didn’t say who) had turned me in.
I mentioned at that time that there were some girls I knew hated me because I was doing well in algebra and consistently got the high scores on the exams (that’s not the only reason they hated me, but it was a good reason why they’d choose to accuse me).
The counselor looked over my past work and agreed that there was little chance I had cheated. Then he gave me the wonderful advice of “you know, there’s no reason you always have to get the high score–perhaps you could fudge a few answers.” Mom went ballistic and pulled me out of that school the very next week.
I found out later who the girls were because they bragged about it to friends of mine. Stupid teacher never did believe I hadn’t cheated. After all, why would three girls lie? :rolleyes:
A good friend of mine once had an EEOC complaint filed against him by a woman who claimed she was being discriminated against because she was black. The basis of her complaint? She was the only black female employee of the company and all the other women were being sexually harrassed, but she wasn’t.
The investigator laughed it off and basically said we gotta go through the motions, etc. He also said that probably 80-90% of the complaints they received were as bogus as this one.
This is kinda of less being accused more than simply running into a situation where a teacher refused to stop long enough to listen or take anything I said as credible.
When I was in first or second grade, my mother (for reasons I will never understand unless the ultimate goal was to torment me ) bought me two identical pairs of shoes.
I was still working on the whole Left Shoe / Right Shoe thing at the time so somehow I managed to get both of my left shoes on my feet, and proceeded to class that way.
One of my earliest memories to this day is of that teacher dragging me from classroom to classroom announcing to everyone there that I had two left shoes on and “Who had my right shoe?”.
Nothing I could say would convice her the stupid thing was in my little locker.
I have been to a variety of courts in the state of Washington the past 20 or so years because my druggy brother has used my name when he was arrested. The last time was just a few months ago over a urinating in public ticket he got in Seattle. I have a fraud alert tied to my name with the state Department of Licensing but apparently the officer decided to not call in for an ID check. The aggravating part is that I am 5 inches taller and about 100 pounds heavier then him. I haven’t seen him in years and I am truly afraid of what I will do to him if I do see him.
My Brother’s wife got a freaky letter at home in the mail:
“Winnifred [SIL’s Real Name not here] God knows what you are doing. He always knows.”
My brother, my own flesh in blood, asked me if I had written it. Didn’t accuse, but not joking, said the “handwriting kind of looked like” mine. He thought I might be “trying to be funny” he said. Just kind of wondered if I had done it.
I could pull a goofball prank or two. I could. But they would be not be an anonymous semi-threatening letter to a pregnant Lady. He was very upset by the letter - I know that. He wasn’t thinking straight. But to consider the notion long enough to even form the words to make the call made me feel really weird then and now.
This was years ago and writing it now I am still mildly, OK not so mildly, pissed off about it. ^&*!@- why would he think that!?! Let alone ask
I’ve been falsely accused of shoplifting and plagiarism. The plagiarism, was in fourth grade. My teacher just thought my report on the Iroquois wasn’t in the words of a nine-year-old. Weird. I don’t know where she thought I would have gotten it from, she knew my mother and knew she wouldn’t have written it for me (she’s a teacher, too.) And resources like the internet and books are kind of limited, when you’re, you know, nine. Any books would have been from the school library, which would have been easy to check, and I definitely wasn’t Internet savvy enough to get something off a website.
The shoplifting thing was even more bizarre. There’s a dollar store pretty close to my house, and I used to go there to pick up whatever it is you get at the dollar store. Every time I went there, this woman would tail me. She would give me dirty looks and follow me through the aisles. It was so weird. One day, I was there with a friend, picking up some snacks, and when I got to the checkout, this woman asked me to empty my pockets or she was calling the police. She had seen me steal some items, apparently. I was too mystified to be indignant, so I just did what she asked. Obviously, I had nothing. It must have been kind of embarrassing for her, but seriously, WTF?
I have another one. I had just gotten out of graduate school and moved to Massachusetts. I was driving in a suburb with my little pickup truck when I notice this car flashing its lights at me. I drove for a while but it continued so I decided to pull over to see if there was anything wrong with my car.
This old lady jumps out of her car and accuses me of hitting her “5 miles back”. I didn’t hit anyone but we pull off to the side to figure out what she is talking about. She keeps jabbering about the “accident” and “all the damage”. I didn’t see anything wrong with her car so I asked her to show me the damage. She studies the car carefully (it was fairly new) and all the sudden points to a body contour and says “THERE”. I almost laughed but we walked around to the other side of the car and I show her the same contour. “You wrecked both sides!” she said. I realized I was dealing with an insane person and had to get away. She was demanding my name while trying to flag cars down. Then she announces that she is going to get my license plate number. Mine was on the back only and I wanted no part of whatever story she was about to spew. She tried to run (as fast as an old lady can run) to the back of my truck. I blocked her with back and forth footwork facing her and then threw my door open for another block. I sped away and nothing ever came of it.
I had the police show up at my office a few months ago, accusing me of a hit-and-run in our office parking-lot. I was absolutely distraught–I did have some damage on the back of my car, where I had backed into my husband’s work van a few weeks previously. They kept asking me questions like, if I hadn’t backed into that woman’s car, how come I had maroon paint in the dent in my car. They gave me a card with their names and phone number; I called my husband as soon as they left and he immediately called them and met with them to show them the damage to his van. They told him that it was obvious from the location of the dent on my car and the damage to the complainant’s car that I hadn’t done it. So WTF were they playing those mind games with me? Just because I’m a woman? I don’t know, but it was a horrible, horrible feeling.
When the guy accused me of sexually harassing him, I didn’t fear for my job in the slightest because I knew they’d never find any evidence and I couldn’t be fired without evidence. But still, months later, I feel like any time one of the doctors I work for looks at me, he’s thinking that I might have done it. I watch very carefully what I say and don’t even joke about anything remotely sexual. I didn’t find out until recently that the guy had told other people in the office that I’d tried to kiss him, and a lot of those people have quit since then, so those people may never know that he was lying, and there’s always the possibility that I’ll work with those people in some other office in the future, and they’ll be thinking that I did that. Ugh.
I guess the reason that it bothers me so much is because it’s so totally against my personality to do anything like that. I’m very much a “rules” person, and very vigilant about being proper and appropriate at work. It flies in the face of everything I stand for, and yet I was accused of doing it. Hopefully I’ll get over it eventually.
I was falsely accused of racism when I stopped a woman who was stealing candy from the store I was working in.
It was one of those self-serve candy stores where you take candy from bins, dump it in a bag, and have it weighed at the cash. This woman decided to fill up a bag and walk off while snacking on her free candy. Unfortunately, this sort of thing happened a lot, because we were in the middle of the mall, at a kiosk, and it was easy for people to sneak off without paying. I followed her a little ways and told her the cash was just over this way, and I offered to take her candy to weigh it. See how nice I was, pretending like she’d just forgotten about the paying part, and not pinning her down and shrieking “THIEF!!”?
Well. She got mad. Very mad. This woman was quite tall, much bigger than me, and had one of the loudest voices I’d ever heard from anyone. I shrank back just a little as she started yelling.
“This is because I’m BLACK! You wouldn’t have stopped a white girl. I’m calling the cops, you racist bitch!” She went on like that for what felt like forever, as I stood there with my mouth wide open, at a complete loss. What do you say to that?
And then my three beautiful, wonderful, black co-workers came up behind me and asked if there was a problem. Yeah, Angry Lady was embarrassed into paying for the candy. The girls and I went out for a drink afterwards and we laughed about it, but I was so floored by the accusation, at the time, that I was absolutely stunned into silence.
Pleaded guilty too, just to be done with it. The ex claimed I hit her. Filed a complaint at the police station where she turned up with no marks and no witnesses. Not only had I not done it, but her first husband used to beat her up regularly, and she never did anything about it.
The arresting officers knew the score though, and I wasn’t even handcuffed. They could tell it was bullshit. The judge knew the score too, and I got no conviction recorded against my name, and no fine. I just had to pay A$95 court costs.
Insulting part was, because she made a complaint to the police, it was a criminal case, me vs. the police, not me vs. my ex, and because I pleaded guilty and she wasn’t required as a witness, she didn’t even need to turn up in court! For her it was just a drive to the police station because we’d had an argument and she was upset.
i was briefly a suspect in a series of campus rapes at my university.
i’ll admit i did fit the description of the accused - approximate height & weight, same skin & hair colour, similar hair length & manner of dress…
but after being questioned by police a second time, and before a third questioning session was scheduled, the real culprit had been apprehended, confessed, and later confirmed by dna testing.
i have had some bad experiences with cops in my time, but in that experience, i must say, i was treated professionally, respectfully - and given a full & sincere apology for my inconveniences after it became clear i was not the person they were looking for. i guess it also helped that my name was never publically released as a potential suspect in the case… that would have made everything a million times worse.
my only other experiences with false accusations (at least ones with legal consequences) even out. i have beaten a few traffic tickets i really should have been held accountable for; though i have an equal number of traffic convictions i honestly did not commit.
Damn. I can’t find it. Can someone help me out here? I hope I’m not misremembering the poster. He was caught up in a years-long battle, threats and lies, tons of money…it was just horrible! I’m sorry if I misremembered the poster. Anyone remember this?
Don’t take it personally. That’s just the way cops and investigators are. I should know-- my husband was an investigator for a few years. It’s automatic for them to try to poke holes in your story, even if they don’t necessarily think you’re guilty. That’s just the way they think.
My husband once tried it on me because I was curious as to how it worked. As our sample accusation he accused me of drinking the last of the milk. By the time we were halfway into the interrogation, I was so twisted around, confused and bewildered that I felt like crying even though it was just a game.
With not-so-bright people, it usually works, especially if they think you know more than you really do.
I thought of another one. This happened years ago when I worked at McDonalds. One day I was out sweeping up the parking lot, when a lady ran up to me and started hollering that I had scratched her car. I was standing next to her car but I hadn’t even touched it. I told her that, but she just kept insisting that she saw me hit her car with the sweeper doohickey. (Kind of a box with a handle. The box is down on the ground and you sweep debris into it.) There were some scratches on her car, but they were at about waist level. Finally, she said she was going to take it to the manager and she stomped back inside.
I followed her in a few minutes later. The lady was at the front counter shrieking her head off and making a big scene. As I opened the door, she pointed right at me and said, “There she is!” Every person in the restaurant turned to look, which caused me to giggle in embarrassment. The lady totally went ballistic. “She scratched my car and now she’s laughing about it!”
The manager drew us both aside to talk about it. I repeated that I hadn’t touched the car. The lady went on accusing me loudly, then finally said, “I’ll quit hollering about it if she’ll just admit she did it.” I was torn. Should I go on defending myself and making this bitch scream in the lobby, or should I just let her have her way? Would the manager get pissed off if I didn’t give in? I hesitated, then finally said, “Okay. I did it.”
The manager, who knew darn well I hadn’t, said to the lady, “Hold on a minute.” She took me back outside and asked me very seriously once again if I had done it. I said no. She said, “Then don’t you say you did. I’ll back you up.” :eek: (In case you never worked fast food, a manager backing you up is a miracle akin to that of the loaves and fishes.)
So we went back in, and I told the lady for the tenth time that I hadn’t scratched her car. And amazingly, this time, she said, “Okay, well never mind then.” :mad:
Wow. Just . . . wow. I’d be curious to know how this might have affected your relationships with women in general.
My little run in with a false accusation is damn small potatoes compared to this. In my last year of grad school, I got an ideal job. It was full time with a museum doing a job within my field, and there were damn few of those available. I also got Friday’s off to finish my thesis, so I’d work after-hours Monday through Thursday to make up for it.
My boss called me in one day and accused me of working on my thesis when I said I had been working. Apparently, a woman that I worked with had clued her in to it. I was so flabbergasted, I’m afraid I didn’t defend myself very well. It was along of the lines of my saying “Uh uh!” She made me give back the keys to the museum, and I was only allowed to work when others were present.
I kept my job, but it was damned humilating. I would have quit, but I had just gotten married, and we needed the money. It still leaves a bad taste in my mouth 12 years later.
) bought me two identical pairs of shoes.