September 6, 1989

On September 6, 1989, the French Police Department admitted to a disturbing computer error. Over the previous weekend, about 41,000 Parisians guilty of simple traffic violations were mailed legal notices accusing them of crimes such as manslaughter, extortion, prostitution, drug trafficking and other felonious pursuits. 

Due to an error in the complex system for coding infractions, the treasury department had sent the stunned Parisian drivers notices charging them with major criminal offenses. Strangely, many of the official notices ordered accused murderers simply to pay relatively small fines to resolve the issue. For example, one young man was ordered to pay a $230 fine for using family ties to procure prostitutes and 'manslaughter by a ship captain and leaving the scene of a crime.' He was actually only guilty of making an illegal U-turn.  

Sometimes the computer prints out Buttle when it should have printed Tuttle.