As a van full of armed US agents in bulletproof vests pulled up in front of Penny McCarthy’s house, they yelled and cursed at her. She stood still. She had no idea what was going on.
“Police!” One of the police officers yelled at her, “Don’t move, put your hands up!” and pointed his assault rifle at her. The 66-year-old woman was told that she would be Tasered if she turned around again.
“Do you really want to know who I am?” FBI body camera video later made public by the US Marshal Service (USMS) and obtained by ABC15 shows that McCarthy asked the officers what they were doing. The answer was, “Put your hands behind your back. We’ll talk about this later.”
The frightening event that happened in Arizona in March 2023 turned out to be a case of mistaken identity.
Carole Anne Rozak, 70, was a different woman that police were looking for because she had an open parole violation warrant from 1999 out of Oklahoma.
Rozak went to jail for all of his felonies. But federal court records that ABC15 also got show that she didn’t show up to see any federal probation officer after she got out of federal prison in Harris County, Texas.
McCarthy can be heard asking the guards several times on the police video if they know who she is, but they always ignore her. After putting her in handcuffs, the police finally told her.
“Carole Rozak,” they say. McCarthy replies, “That’s not who I am.”
McCarthy offered proof that she wasn’t Rozak, but she was still taken and put in the back of the police van.
Later, during court proceedings, it came out that the fake identification was based on Facebook posts and “some aliases” that the agents had found. McCarthy’s case was thrown out by a federal judge in Arizona, but not before she spent time in jail for the mistake.
As the Deputy US Marshal Service in Oklahoma put it, they thought McCarthy’s digital fingerprints matched Rozak’s because of a “glitch.” This turned out to be false.
The service said in a statement, “USMS continues to conduct a thorough review of actions taken by deputy US marshals regarding the fugitive investigation of Caroline Anne Rozak and the subsequent mistaken arrest of Penny McCarthy.”
The event still has an effect on the mom.
After the bodycam video came out, Ms. McCarthy told ABC15, “I am so fricking disappointed in my government, it’s not funny.”
“All they did was lie to me and treat me badly,” she said. “This makes me think that the US marshals are above the law.”
Source: US Marshals Arrest Grandmother at Gunpoint, Threaten to Taser Her in Mistaken Identity Case
+ There are no comments
Add yours