Falsely Accused of Shoplifting

[terriblevision]

My question involves criminal law for the state of: Oregon

I was wrongfully accused of shoplifting today. The people who know about this (friends/family) have told me that I should file a civil lawsuit against this store, and the people who accused me. My shoplifting story is different than most though, but I'm young and I really dont know how I should go about this. I'm talking to an attorney tomorrow.


this retail store has some thing stolen from them, and i had bought something there the other day, and they used my credit card to find my address. (they thought this person was me).

cop came to my house. parked around the corner. tried to get me to admit to the crime by not telling me details, and asked me "what I was doing yesterday". Obviously I was clueless, so then he ended up telling me some girl stole tons of items at this big retail store and that I matched the description of the girl, because I had been there the other day. The problem with this is that the clothing the girl wore did not match what I wore the days I went to the store that week, and neither did her car or her bag.

He said I was arrested for shoplifting a few years ago, which i said was untrue. He insisted it was true, and made a call and realized that I was the complainant to that case (back in 2004). So thats one mistake he made. Then he kept accusing me of this crime, we went downstairs, and I said that I would drive to the store to settle this since he obviously did not believe me. He saw the cars that we had and both did NOT match the car of the shoplifter. I followed him and as I walked up to the door at the store, the shop manager took one look at me and shook her head at the cop. She looked really scared and both of them apologized to me, but did not walk out the door to the entrance. The cop then apologized and we went our ways. Of course everyone was staring at me at the entrance, thinking that I was being arrested for shoplifting right there (which was humiliating, to say the least), and I'm a pretty sensitive person so I couldn't control myself and started to cry in front of the cop.



first of all, how did they connect my name to the shoplifter? i'm pretty sure its because the shoplifter was the same race as me. She was caught on tape and all you could see was her hair/outfit. but my outfit did not match the description at all, and I'm sure of that, I would swear it to eternity. I'm not sure if I should just drop this or not, but I was pretty humiliated and i'm still very beaten up. the cop was so insistent it was me and he used a lot of scare tactics on me. they got my name and address from my credit card, since I made a return/purchase there, so my information was released without me knowing.

what should i do? should I file a civil lawsuit? should I just drop it? I feel pretty pissed because the cop berated me for 20 minutes. I know thats what he was supposed to do, but it was scary as hell and I felt like he was going to arrest me on the spot.

[DaveJames]

Well its good to know some of the psychology police use to get an innocent person to confess so the case is closed and they have less work to do.

Another reason not to ever to speak to police if they are on a fact finding mission with you as the suspect in mind.

What can you ask the police to get a handle of when to clam up or not?