It is kind of weird to look at a jail’s website and see your own name listed, even when you know it isn’t you.
As a journalist, the first thing I usually do when I get into the office in the morning is check my e-mail. The second thing I usually do is check the websites of our local detention centers to see who got arrested.
There are almost always a handful of people each day booked into the jails on various charges ranging from DUI and shoplifting to assault, sexual abuse, strangulation, etc.
Last Wednesday morning, the name of one person in the Whitley County Detention Center grabbed by attention.
Mark White.
The Williamsburg Police Department had arrested a Mark Allen White, who is around my age, on charges of third-degree fleeing or evading police theft-shoplifting, possession of drugs and tampering with physical evidence.
Never being one, who is afraid of making fun of himself, I immediately took a screenshot of it. I e-mailed it to my co-workers writing, “My name sake. FYI-Not me.”
Williamsburg Police alleged this guy dressed up as a Walmart employee so he could shoplift from the store and then tried to run off when caught. They posted a picture of him on Facebook wearing Khaki pants and a blue shirt, which has what looks like is kind of a faded logo on it in the picture.
I don’t know whether my namesake is guilty, but I have to give him props for originality if he is. I wouldn’t have thought to do that.
This isn’t the first time I have had to write my own name in a crime story when it wasn’t me.
A few years back, there was a guy named Mark White, who was indicted for some kind of theft charge. His middle initial was “R” if I recall correctly.
This was when we had our Williamsburg office. I e-mailed the story up to our then Publisher Trent Knuckles in Corbin for proofreading. He called me up a little later asking a few questions trying to figure out if it was me in the story.
My reply once he finally came out and said what he was calling about was along of the lines of “really dude?”
A few months later I was over in circuit court back when it was in the old courthouse, and then Judge Jerry Winchester called out the name, “Mark White,” from the bench as he called the next case.
All eyes in the courtroom turned to me at which pointed I piped up and said, “different one judge.”
“That’s what they all say,” then Commonwealth’s Attorney Allen Trimble said in his booming, laughing voice.
I think everyone in the courtroom got a laugh over that one.
Having someone with the same name as you getting into trouble can be a bit of a pain, but I can say from experience it is not the end of the world.
Over the years, I have had a few preachers call me upset because someone with their same name got arrested and was listed in the newspaper.
My standard reply to them is usually along the lines of I can run a disclaimer saying whatever name it was, which appeared in the newspaper, is not the same as preacher so and so. I also tell them if their flock doesn’t already know they wouldn’t do something like this, then they have much bigger problems than I can solve for them.
As you might have expected, they often hang up mad.
