Student Googles Himself, Finds He's Accused of Murder

University of Florida student Zachary Garcia was more than a little surprised to find out he was wanted for murder after Googling his name. It turns out the police were looking for a different man but had mistakenly used Garcia's photo. From the article: "Investigators originally released a driver's license photo of Zachary Garcia — spelled with an 'A' — but it was Zachery Garcia — spelled with an 'E'— who was charged in connection with the crime."

Comments

Sorry, Mr. Hitlar,

[theY4Kman]

We were looking for Hitler.

Re:Sorry, Mr. Hitlar,

[WitnessForTheOffense]

"It's not my fault that Buttle's heart condition didn't appear on Tuttle's file!"

Naked Ladies

[nege]

Am I the only one that noticed "NAKED LADIES" on the news bar to the right of the screen at the start of video? I have the whole internet at my fingertips and I'm thinking "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE NAKED LADIES???"

Re:That's nothing!

[panda]

You laugh, but a man, with the same first and last name as I, was murdered in Jamaica several years ago in a rather brutal fashion: he was decapitated with a machete. He was leading a ring of phone scammers and some of the other members of the ring had a disagreement over the money.

Another man with the same first and last name is serving a prison sentence for weapons charges.

Another man with the same first and last name is a doctor.

Another is a low-budget file directory.

I could go on.

Its fun having a common name.

No, I didn't google myself as a result of this story. I do from time to time when bored with nothing else to do. If you google my name now, you don't get the murder story until very far into the results, but it was among the top results when it happened four or five years ago.

There's a movie for this...

[zuki]

Inbefore the obligatory quote from Terry Gilliam's prophetic movie masterpiece Brazil with the mistake between 'Buttle' and 'Tuttle', and the ensuing pandemonium.

that isn't the real crime here

[Jailbrekr]

The real travesty is not that law enforcement mixed him up with another kid, its that the kid is charged with felony murder because the homeowner of the house he was robbing shot at and killed one of his friends. While I cannot necessarily condemn the homeowner for his act, to charge the three surviving robbers with murder is ludicrous. One teenager paid the highest possible price for his foolish act, and now the criminal justice system is going to destroy three other lives? what the hell Florida? If I jaywalk with three other people and a motor runs over one of us, are the rest of us guilty of vehicular manslaughter?

Re:that isn't the real crime here

[Jailbrekr]

The fact that you cannot see the immorality of this kind of logic is further evidence of the systemic breakdown of both morality and law within your (our) society. Theft is not murder, but by the twisted logic of your court system, it can be if a homeowner uses lethal force to protect his physical possessions. Now, having said that, I can see where something like this can originate from. If you're getting robbed, and you bolt out into traffic to get away only to be squished by a truck, the robber is culpible. Run over a pedestrian while trying to get away? Culpible. Robbing a house only to have your friend shot and killed by the homeowner? Probably not the original intent of the bill but hey, slippery slopes tend to end up in ridiculous situations like this.

Re:that isn't the real crime here

[kevorkian]

There is a reasonable expectation that the homeowner will defend himself.
How is shooting the intruder any diffrent then running over someone while escaping.
Both were forced by the robber.

The robber put in motion the events could reasonably be foreseen as resulting in the death. If the robbery did not happen , the person would not be dead. I believe that the legal term is 'depraved indifference to human life'.

Re:that isn't the real crime here

[Tanman]

This is a basic tenant in all courts in America: If you initiate a crime, you are charged with ALL consequences that take place as a result of your crime.

Basically, it works like this:

If you do crime A which has results B and C, you will be charged with all results. If you commit burglary, and someone dies as a result of your burglary, it is your fault. And frankly, that's the way it should be.

Re:that isn't the real crime here

[Vegemeister]

The homeowner, who was justified, and the dead man, who cannot be charged.

Felony murder law

[Zatar]

On a complete tangent, reading this article is the first time I've noticed the ugly little details of the "felony murder law".

Under Florida law, individuals involved in a felony resulting in death can be charged with murder.

You'd think that means if you kill someone while committing a felony that you can be charged with murder. That seems somewhat reasonable, although I can think of cases where it would be excessive.

It turns out if you break into a house for a robbery and some other guy that came with you kills someone maybe somewhere else in the house and you didn't even know you can still be charged with murder.

Now, that seems pretty unfair but we find out in this story that they can go even beyond that. In this story a couple of kids break into a house and the homeowner shoots and kills one of them. They then applied this law to charge the other kid with murder!

That's pretty messed up.

Could be worst

[TheCarp]

This is a funny mistake but... you know... at least it was the civilian police, and civilian courts.

He should be glad his last name isn't El Masri: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri:

a German citizen who was kidnapped,[3] flown to Afghanistan, interrogated and allegedly tortured by the CIA for several months as a part of the War on Terror. Afterwards he was released. This extrajudicial detention was apparently due to a misunderstanding that arose concerning the similarity of the spelling of El-Masri's name with the spelling of suspected terrorist al-Masri[4] (the names are spelled the same way when using Arabic script).

On a related note, a friend of mine recently found he had a warrant for issues that are besides the point. Lets just say, dubious charges of a domestic nature. So, upon finding this out, and verifying it, he drove to a friends place to "lay low" while he calls his lawyer and figures what to do next. The advice he got? Interestingly.... go to the court house in the AM and surrender directly to the court. In this case, that meant he a) looked responsible to the judge b) got it over with quickly and c) denied the police (who had only heard the other side of the story) no chance to "recommend bail".

In the end, he walked out on his on recognizance. (well, end of the day, if not the story)

-Steve

Re:He will have a hard time geting a job now

[Fulcrum of Evil]

I had one girl shoot me down because she could fine 20 to 30 others with the same name as mine but not me on a google search. She claimed I was using an alias.

You may not believe me, but you dodged a bullet.