Agreed. Here’s how I parse the non-sense:
The word “originally” gives away that “subsequently” the plate number on the ladies’ vehicle miraculously did NOT come back as stolen.
AF Mistake One: Databases do not change themselves, so this implies the guards either misread the plate or mis-entered it “originally”.
AF Mistake Two: Rather than recheck competently first, they put innocent ladies and children at high risk, and reaped a ton of bad publicity.
AF Mistake Three: Rather than admit their own fault, the AF used fairly talented spin doctors concoct dodgy language to shift blame to the database.
AF Mistake Four: Gave the game away by using the word “originally”.
AF Mistake Five: Their dodgy language implies that they are checking plates while people are LEAVING, instead of when entering the AFB. Hopefully this is a by-product of their overall lie, not that they actually let dangerous terrorists and car thieves prowl the base unvetted, but do care when they leave. Like most guests, these ladies and children likely spent hours at this really great air museum, affording plenty of time to re-check evidence, and safely apprehend any car thieves after they park their vehicles. I suspect that they DID check the plate going in, but got no hit because someone put in the correct number. If so, their use of “originally” was not only stupid, but false.
The head of security should be fired, along with everyone involved in the post-incident lying. But they might be promoted instead, since facile lying is the gold standard of government.
Of course, the family had a perfectly innocent reason for their behavior, because they were looking at all of the out of state license plates. I will confess that I did the same thing when I was driving out of this museum lot last year, because there really were people from all over the country. I also had a patrol vehicle behind me by the time I left, come to think of it. I guess my license plate came back clean!
The situation was cleared up when the police checked the VIN number, after the family had been detained. The use of the word "originally" would differentiate the License Plate Check, which indicated a stolen vehicle, and the VIN Number check, which indicated that the vehicle was not stolen.