Mistaken identity to the extreme

[casualmadness]

Have you ever been mistaken for someone else in an extreme situation? I don't mean, someone saw you in a cafe and mistook you for their cousin until they saw your face. I'm talking about an extreme situation. Allow me to explain:

Once when I was about 14 or so, my sister and I were at home alone one night while our mom was out. It was right around midnight'ish when my sister came into my room to say that someone was in her closet. We ran to the opposite end of the house (house was very long) and called the police. I stashed my sister and went toward her room to investigate. Baseball bat in hand, I went into her room only to find an open window. So I ran to the front door and out on to the lawn to look for a burglar.

Just about that time, a white cutlass raced onto the lawn, and out came a young'ish man in jeans and a regular shirt. He immediately takes a pistol from his pants and runs at me. I was terrified. I was so afraid that I literally did not hear him screaming..."POLICE!!! GET ON THE GROUND NOW!!!!" All that I could think about was that he was most likely the accomplice of the man who had broken into my sisters room. I never heard him screaming at me.

He ran at me, pistol pointed. So I pulled back my baseball bat and decided I was gonna at least get a swing in. But before I even realized what had happened he was right on me and I never got the chance to swing (thankfully). I was probably too afraid to actually do it (I was 14 yanno).

Anyway, I was on the ground and he put the cop knee on my neck and put the cuffs on me. I was so relieved that he wasn't going to murder me that I didn't even say anything at first. Before he even got me off the ground, my sister ran out and told him who I was. It was at that point that I began to declare my innocence.

After he let me go and searched the house and the perimeter, he found nothing and came to talk to us. He said that when he saw me, he thought that I was the burglar. I was six feet tall and around 180 at 14. So at night I imagine it would be easy to see me as a threat instead of the kid that I was.

So what's happened to you?

[kobass]

About thirty years ago, the guitarist/leader of a band I was in gave me a ride to a gig. The back seat of his car and the trunk were full of gear. We couldn't close the trunk, so we tied it down, but some of the gear was in plain view. We were driving back to my house after the gig in the early morning.
Unfortunately for us, about an hour or so before we got back into my town, a nightclub there had been held up at gunpoint. The robbers roughed up some of the staff and took off with a bunch of money and musical equipment.
We were immediately pulled over by the police and it seemed like there were half a dozen cruisers swarming around us within a minute or so. We were ordered out of the car at gunpoint (which needless to say, is a very scary thing).
Luckily, cooler heads prevailed, and after the police realized we weren't the guys they were looking for, we were on our way.

[Valerus]

Wow those really are extreme cases!

I don't have a cool story to tell.

[jomahu]

one time i was in line for tickets and a lady got mad at me. she was yelling 'sir! sir!' trying to get my attention, but of course i was ignoring her.
then i looked over, wanting to know who the hell she was yelling at, and realized it was me, and that i had been in the wrong line.

as far as extreme cases of mistaken identity...well, i can't get into too many details, but it involved certain law enforcement agencies pounding on my door at 6am.

[A9X]

I get mistaken for Tom Cruise all the time. I think it's the giggling and incomplete sentences whilst jumping on the couch.

[hbarcat]

A buddy of mine had a 76 Pontiac Trans Am and one of his co-workers at the hotel/resort they worked at for the summer got drunk and "borrowed" it for a joy ride with his also drunk girlfriend, who was one of the popular young local girls. He drove it into a tree at 60mph and both of them were seriously hurt with her being permanently crippled. He was surprised when the cops showed up at his workplace and started asking questions about his car, which he assumed was still in the parking lot. He quickly got himself cleared of any responsibility (the guy was charged with auto theft and a bunch of other stuff) but my friend was a bit put off by the whole incident so he quit before the season was over and went home.

A couple of years later, he and I both went to visit the place for a vacation and, while we were in the bar, a group of four local guys were there and recognized him as the one guy who used to work there who owned the Trans Am. They assumed he was the guy who got drunk and drove the car into the tree, crippling one of their local girls and they started pushing and shoving him (including the bartender and bouncer ) and telling him he could leave town right now on his own or leave unconscious in the trunk of a car. They were shoving him back and forth while he was protesting that it was a different guy they were thinking of. I was standing next to him with one of the guys blocking me from getting involved, but there really wasn't much I would have been capable of in that circumstance.

Eventually, one of the three said something like, "Hey I think he's right, I think I remember that it was his co-worker who stole the car." So we waited there for about five minutes while one of them found the police chief (who was drinking in the bar down the street) and had him confirm that he was an innocent party.

They apologized for the mistake and bought us a couple of rounds.

[Valerus]

Originally Posted by A9X

I get mistaken for Tom Cruise all the time. I think it's the giggling and incomplete sentences whilst jumping on the couch.

That can do it, man.