He Went to Jail for Stealing Someone's Identity. But It Was His All Along

Something similar happened to one of our sons. Unfortunately he has a history of drug use that landed him in legal trouble. The local police recognize him. He had a minor fender bender. The police tested him for alcohol there, clean. But then given history they detained him and took him to the nearest ER for a battery of drug tests -- for which the hospital billed our son, and for which our son is on the hook. It's bonkers.

For people from most places outside the US, I bet such stories from US's medical system sound totally crazy. It is crazy for a medical system to function like this charging somebody for being involuntarily treated, and even more for no medical cause.

What would have happened, to the hospital's part, if they had declared that you were not intoxicated and you should not have been brought to the hospital, and sent you on your way? Would the police have had to justify dragging you to the hospital, and pay for your examination? I suspect that going along with the police may have been the decision with the simplest and most profitable outcome for everybody (apart from you) and that the hospital side was incetivised to go along with police's story rather than against, but I am not sure how things there typically work in such cases.

Being skeptical about authority figures is always a good thing, it always surprise me to see populations so deferent to them like americans are to law enforcement.

How are people surprised that Luigi Mangione is considered a hero?

You should talk to a no fee lawyer or three. Financial & Emotional damages can help assuage the anger you have.

They can force you to pay when you don't consent to treatment?

It is a weird twist on the fairy tale. What if you had a medical condition that compelled you to cry “Wolf” all the time? Obviously the townsfolk can’t spend all their time responding to false wolf sightings, but there is no lessoned to be learned when The Boy actually believes he sees a wolf every day.

I have been close to multiple people who made similar paranoid allegations while psychotic. It is sometimes hard for people to understand the allegations are false or part of an illness. This can include judges and mental health professionals.

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Yes! This is divorce in America right now, if one party is willing to make up a series of lies, no matter how unbelievable the court will just default to the one making the accusations because its too much work to even try to sort out truth from lie, thats why the lawyers call it, "Liars Court" because the biggest liar wins.

No, i don't think so. I have an older friend that is persuaded to have seen something most people don't believe in back in the 90s. He just won't claim it publicly, and don't talk about it all the time, it's not a core part of his personality. Even if some people make fun of him for it (i don't think it happen nowadays, but it might), they can, and probably will believe him on other subjects (he is a very precise and knowledgeable in electronics, and have really interesting philosophical point of views).

Evaluating things people say in the context of their general credibility and character is pretty evergreen.

The contrapositive of which is just because you’re right does not mean you are not crazy.

What word would you use?

> Could his father not have identified him?

Probably. That assumes that the father was still alive and of sound mind. Also assumes that the father had much contact with the son.

If they have become strangers to each other a long time ago he might not even be able to tell who is his real son, but his DNA still can provide evidence.

How it got to this level, abridged: a generic lack of accountability, shit work ethic, and qualified immunity.

Are fingerprints no longer viable?

When he first started using someone else's identity, the crimes might not have been "long in the past" yet, but once you start doing something like that and have established a life under the assumed identity, it's not easy to go back.

The real problem here is the attempt to maintain permanent one-to-one mappings between ID numbers and humans. The legitimate purpose of a government ID is so you can e.g. go to the bank, open an account and then later establish to the bank that you're the same person who opened the account. If you want to get a new ID number and start over, you shouldn't have to steal someone else's in order to do that, you should just be able to go to the DMV or the social security administration and get a new ID under a new name that isn't already somebody else's.

The hypothesis that this would help criminals is pretty thin. They're already going to use an assumed name, which is why law enforcement uses photos/fingerprints/DNA to identify suspects rather than a government ID that people aren't actually required to carry regardless.

Same happened to me. Someone stole my ID (diplomas, driver license and biometrics) to escape history.

He was homeless and likely lost his ID and the papers needed get a new one. Then the identity thief obtained an ID and birth certificate.

Unless you are suggesting that the government take biometrics. Except that wouldn't have helped in this case, cause the identity thief would have shown up with ID and gotten scanned.

We have these little things called elections for doing that. Parts of the government would love to have this perfect registry and things like RealID are attempts at that but there's a lot of push back and reasons not to have some mythical impervious citizen tracking system too.

>I listen to his shows when I'm driving, but just be advised he is long-winded – repeating himself many times about the same thing.

I think you've identified why I don't particularly like his videos. His takes are usually interesting and they are usually interesting cases, but he spends 10 minutes talking about something that is worth 2 minutes at best.

In my country first government issued id is done in the presence of a parent/guardian at the age between 16 and 18. Police before issuing the id will take your fingerprints and you can replace id (if stolen, lost, expired) with a fingerprint only. No questions and no witnesses necessary.

Well, it’s not mandatory to take out a passport or ID card anywhere that I’m aware. And perhaps a photo ID database would have been as far as I’d be willing to stretch when it comes to storing biometrics.

But you do realize that even the government of each state does not know who lives at what address? The only exception being around the time of each census.

It’s a miracle people can get their mail in the US (and I know a whole neighborhood on Hawaii that can’t!)