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Police say false reports take up time, use manpower that could be employed elsewhere and sometimes jab an accusatory finger at an innocent person. But why do people tell police and others stories that could land themselves in the clink?

Smith County Sheriff’s Lt. Larry Wiginton said he has no idea, but occasionally he has a person file a report that just isn’t true.

“We can’t use a polygraph against them, but we use them as a tool to help us in cases where we think the person may be something other than truthful. Do they actually think they will pass it?” he said.

Wiginton’s department recently arrested a University of Texas at Tyler dean’s list student for filing an assault report against country music starlet Miranda Lambert.

Aisha Esbay told authorities and the media in interviews that Ms. Lambert assaulted her at a local night club after she asked for a picture with the star.

“I told her she shouldn’t treat her fans like that and she jumped up and started cussing (at) me saying I was in the VIP section and needed to go back with the other trailer trash,” Mrs. Esbay said April 22.

The singer pushed her, and Mrs. Esbay caught herself on a stool before being shoved two more times as “she let the cuss words fly,” she said.

Wiginton said the woman’s story didn’t hold water and deputies arrested her and charged her with filing a false report.

Targets vary in false stories.

An Athens student claimed a group of Hispanic students tore her school project on immigration up and then assaulted her because they were upset with her stance on illegal immigration. The 13-year-old went on television and told a story of being beaten and almost sexually assaulted in the halls of the middle school by fellow students.

What police learned through watching surveillance video is that the teen scratched and injured herself as she walked to the principal’s office to report the alleged crime.

The girl’s story sparked renewed racial tensions as many in the community used the alleged event as a new battle cry against immigrants.

Wilson Renfroe, a Tyler psychologist for the past 19 years, said people exhibiting symptoms of passive aggressive behavior are the ones mostly responsible for such grand and untrue stories.

“People make up stories all the time, but it’s usually not as public as these and they certainly don’t report them to authorities,” he said.

Renfroe said many of the people have feelings of being an outcast and that they just don’t belong.

“We all or most all of us do at times engage in things that aren’t healthy for us, but not to this extreme. I hate to be clich? here and say that sometimes it’s just for pure attention to be involved in some sort of scandal. Then there are some people, who for whatever reason, just want to stir things up,”

Don Martin, Tyler Police Department public information officer, said when officers investigate such cases it takes a lot of resources from the department.

“We could have spent the time and our efforts on other cases that did occur and not in some case that didn’t,” he said.

Martin said his department charges those suspected of false reports, as does the sheriff’s office.

Both departments said they see a limited number of false reports, but acknowledged they do have some filed each year.

“What we see most of the time is when a vehicle is wrecked the owner will say it was stolen and he wasn’t driving,” Wiginton said. “We usually don’t see many cases like the Esbay case.”

Renfroe said those who counsel others often see made-up tales.

“We see it every day but it doesn’t usually make the headlines,” he said. “If it would have been Miranda Long instead of Miranda Lambert it would have never made the news.”