Police officers surrounded Jasmine Horne in June 2021 after she parked her car in front of her west Charlotte home. She was handcuffed, searched and placed in the back of a police car. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department says Horne was released on scene within 15 minutes of first being placed in handcuffs.
Officers say they confused her with a woman with a similar name who was suspected of a violent crime.
Horne filed a complaint with CMPD. An internal investigation concluded the officers did not violate policy and were acting in good faith with the information they received.
Horne appealed that decision to the Citizens Review Board, which reviews misconduct complaints against the police department. Horne notes her car was registered to the address where she parked and questions why police didn’t take that into account before they approached her.
"That’s a very unfortunate situation," CMPD Chief Johnny Jennings said on WFAE's Charlotte Talks in February. "We have over 500,000 contacts that we have with individuals every year. We’re not going to get it right every single time."
"The person that they were looking for was very similar names," Jennings said. "The information that was put in that they were acting on was based on the incorrect name, so the officers had no way of knowing that. I thought they did a fantastic job while they were out there, realizing that something just wasn’t right.
"They didn't feel like they had the right individual, and as soon as they investigated that, they corrected those actions. So, I can’t fault the officers for looking for a violent criminal who had just committed a very serious crime and responded to that."
Jasmine Horne says she looked up the person police were really looking for — Jaselyn Horne, who was arrested two days after this incident on a charge of attempted first-degree murder.
"It’s not the same name, our faces look different," Horne said. "Yes, we are both Black women, but our faces are different, our birthdays are different, our addresses are different."
