An innocent man was held at gunpoint last Friday after a mix-up by a GPS tracking company sent deputies in pursuit of the wrong vehicle.
Michigan-based GuidePoint Systems, a firm specializing in stolen vehicle recovery, alerted police about a stolen gray Dodge Ram 3500, according to officer Marcus Hawkins. Due to an unknown mix-up, when the company activated the GPS tracking in the truck they actually began tracking a white Ford that was part of the same company fleet as the Dodge.
Deputies pulled over the white Ford and held the driver at gunpoint before quickly realizing the Ford wasn’t the stolen vehicle. Shortly after being release, the white Ford was pulled over again by CHP officers in an attempt to resolve the GPS tracking error. When CHP contacted both the GPS company as well as the company that owns the trucks, they realized they pulled over the wrong vehicle.
It remained unclear whether the actual stolen vehicle was tracked or found.