July 10, 2008
Library Assistant Suing Over Mistaken Email Nightmare
A 24-year-old former library assistant at the fancy Riverdale Country School in the Bronx is suing the city and several police officers over a case of mistaken email identity that landed him in jail for 30 hours and left him publicly disgraced. The trouble started last year after William Hallowell sent a resignation email to Robin Bernsen, the head librarian at the school. She replied sympathetically, according to the Times, and Hallowell moved on with his life.
But when Bernsen tried to contact him again to request the return of a library key, she mistakenly emailed her request to someone who uses “Ben” Hallowell as an email address. And the response she got from Ben – who posed as William – was rather unsettling:
I want your sweet body against my skin! We could do it in the library. I could spank you with a vintage [copy] of Finigan's [sic] Wake… With the money I have received from pawning off the key I have bought myself a gun. I have spent many hours in quite [sic] contemplation wondering if I am meant for this twisted world.After Bernsen called the police, the school was briefly locked down out of fear for students’ safety. But the real Hallowell knew nothing of it until the cops came to arrest him. He says the officers seemed completely ignorant of how email addresses work, and they charged him with harassment despite seeing his previous emails with Bernsen from his actual email account.
The charges were ultimately dropped last August for a “lack of evidence,” but his lawsuit accuses “officers of deliberately and maliciously ignoring a mountain of evidence.” Speaking to the Times, his lawyer points out that “this could happen to anybody if the police are going to have absolutely no competence when it comes to understanding email or the Internet.” It is still unknown who actually sent the offending email.
| 
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
email this
add to facebook
add to del.icio.us
[ report this ]
knowing the cops in our city- this is super freakin frightening.
[ report this ]
In the defense of the cops, the director of the library at this exclusive school didn't figure it out either.
Complainant says that guy is harassing him so the cops go arrest him. That sounds understandable.
Supposedly intelligent guy gets an out of character email from former coworker and locks down the school and calls 911 without double checking the sender. Not so understandable
[ report this ]
The police have absolutely no competence in ANYTHING, not just when it comes to understanding email or the Internet.
[ report this ]
The city shouldn't have to pay, because that would just hurt the taxpayers. Instead, the cops should be held personally liable, driven into bankruptcy, be fired from their jobs, and lose their pension rights.
[ report this ]
I don't understand why the cops are getting flak for this. She sent the email to the wrong person. She freaked out and called the cops, not recognizing the mistake. She showed them the email and said it came from this guy.
[ report this ]
I don't understand why the cops are getting flak for this.
Because cops are cowards who act like thugs when they're in a group, are grossly overpaid, retire at disgustingly young ages with lavish pensions, and spend all their time grotesquely exaggerating the difficulties and dangers of their jobs. That's why.
[ report this ]
#6 overstates it, perhaps a little, but he's got a point.
The cops ought to be able to work out the kind of "evidence" a child could understand. It saves so many misunderstandings and mistaken expensive prosecutions. Like this one. Yes, the head librarian made a really dumb mistake, but the cops get mistaken and crank calls all the time. They need to filter to not to waste their time.
The city has to pay up because they regulate the cops and until our the city govt gets a grip on reality and rids the NYPD of violent morons this kind of crap will keep happening. To any of us.
I still maintain it's a minority of cops who are the dumb, violent thugs we hear about so often. But I mostly say that because I don't want to be harassed and assraped.
[ report this ]
if the cops had handcuffed the guy in his apt & taken 5 minutes to look at the evidence, they would have known that the library worker made a mistake & not arrested him, instead they acted just like #6 describes.
[ report this ]
Normally I'd agree.. but the thing is if police make a mistake and then let the perp go, that is a much bigger failure. Because there were threats involved here, police had to take it more seriously than a simple prank.
Still, it totally sucks that the guy had to spend 30 hours in lockup.
[ report this ]
One of these days, the entire police force should just take a day off without pay. Some people need a refresher. Police steal our tax dollars. They are thugs, garbage, and sleeze... something like 9/11 happens or they save your ass: they're heroes and the best. Listen to some modern music, indulge the media and they're thugs garbage and sleeze all over again.
Good job douchebag. All that says is that your mind is just another slave of the media.
[ report this ]
What do you expect from the police. If these people were smart enough to be a doctor or a lawyer they wouldn't be a cop. They are basically one step up from the dude asking if you wanted fries with that, but with a uniform and a gun.
[ report this ]
the cops don't care because they know they'll always get off. from the judges to the DA's they all have a scam going wink wink nudge nudge say no more, without one there can't be the other. if there's no more crime, why do we still need to up the budget?
like that mt. vernon cop who ignored the calls for help from that immigrant, not guilty.
I can't wait till the day #10 wrote about.
yep, Molon Labe and I still have some Y2K stuff.
not a Honda generator though, should have bought one before the jump in price.
[ report this ]
the issue isn't police competence or a proper understanding of the law.
the issue is we're all guilty and the job of the fascist security forces is to find out what we're guilty of. aka... extracting the voluntary confession.
William Hallowell had it coming to him...as we all do.
[ report this ]
One more thing, don't screw with a librarian or anyone that works for a library. They're very arbitrary and capricious. They can be offended for no reason whatsoever. They're also paranoid (that's she called the cops.
[ report this ]
Cops feel their job is to arrest people, not clear them of wrongdoing. Let someone else sort that out, goes their thinking. There's probably some kind of arrest statistics contest going on among cops and maybe even an arrest quota.