That seems completely unreasonable. The police operates on imperfect evidence, and as long as we don't switch to an omniscient surveillance state, that will always be the case. Catching the wrong guy and letting him go after a week seems like a reasonable mistake when you're looking for a murderer. If it had been 6 months, he would have had way more of a point.
> That seems completely unreasonable.
Here's [0] another article.
He showed up in the location (Google) and his ownership of same make/color vehicle (surveillance video) added to his suspectibility. So he was arrested. A week later he was released. A year later he's suing for defamation, gross negligence, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
In that one week:
> the arrest causes him to fail background checks
> news coverage prominently features in Google searches of his name
> forced to drop out of school, having missing too many classes of the accelerated college program he was enrolled in
So, he lost his job and his school. In one week he easily could have missed rent -- and this is before the pandemic so there's no moratorium on evictions.
$1.5 million definitely isn't unreasonable for problems caused from being in jail for a week despite innocence.
[0]: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10760055/innocent-man-23-sues-...
For anyone who is not blessed as a programmer and merely earns the average (median) of $36,0000 year, we'd be talking about 40+ years of lost wages.
I'd also try to get the most out of this awful week.