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Raiders safety Nate Allen suing police department after mistaken identity arrest

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Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

How would you like to be arrested for exposing yourself in public just for being in the area where such an incident happened? That's what happened to Raiders newest safety Nate Allen last February and he is not taking content with the charges being cleared. He's suing the police department for their mistake as first reported by TMZ.

Allen was in his hometown of Fort Myers Florida last February. The place he was born and raised and played high school football at Cape Coral High before going on to star at University of South Florida. That day he was in the same area as where a 16-year-old girl called the police saying a man was looking at her and masturbating in his truck.

Police pulled Allen over and arrested him, stating that he was ID'd as the suspect. He was then detained in a holding cell for nearly five hours without as he described it was no idea of why he was there. Some six hours since he was initially arrested, he was released due to what the police said was a case of mistaken identity.

According to Allen, the man the girl described had long curly hair while Allen not only does not have long curly hair but was wearing his white cap that day.

"The point I want to get across is it's not even about football," Allen told the News-press last February. "Just having my name associated with something like this, and even that I'm sitting here talking about this disgusts me. Seriously. People are like, 'It's too bad this is happening at a time like this, so close to free agency. You're supposed to be looking for a job.' Forget football. I'm not worried about what's going to happen with football. I'm worried about this little girl saying I did something that I didn't do."

The Raiders were certainly not deterred by the arrest. They looked to signed Allen to a one-year deal last year and ramped up their efforts to land him this offseason, signing him to a long term deal in the first week of free agency.

With that out of the way, Allen can get to the business of fighting back against his local Fort Myers police department for the way they handled him.

"He's a fighter," Allen's lawyer Sawyer Smith told TMZ after notifying the police department of the lawsuit. "he's going to stand up for this community and its residents to have a fair shake when they interact with law enforcement."