Detroit PD Sued Over Yet Another Bogus Arrest Based On An Unverified Facial Recognition ‘Match’

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the let-the-software-do-the-thinking dept

The city of Detroit finally revamped the rules for police department use of facial recognition tech last July. We’ll have to wait and see whether adding guardrails will result in fewer false arrests, but what may end up being too little definitely arrived too late for a Detroit woman who was falsely arrested by the same police department that had already done this three times previously.

Here’s Emma Camp with more details for Reason:

Last year, Detroit police wrongly arrested LaDonna Crutchfield after facial recognition software incorrectly identified her as the culprit of a shooting, according to a lawsuit filed on February 21. While police did not even have a warrant for Crutchfield’s arrest, they handcuffed, detained, and jailed her anyway. The officers had conducted no investigation, relying fully on a facial recognition database. Police released Crutchfield only when it became obvious that they had arrested the wrong person.

Just like the previous three bogus arrests, cops went after people based solely on facial recognition matches without bothering to verify anything else about the supposed suspects. And just like those previous cases, the images used to perform these searches were far less than ideal. Crutchfield’s lawsuit [PDF] contains the images the Detroit PD used as [re-reads lawsuit] the entirety of its probable cause determinations.

The first image is far from ideal for facial recognition matches, given the low quality of the source image:

The second was even worse. If you’re relying on facial recognition tech to help you narrow down the list of suspects, it might help to have another photo that actually contains the alleged suspect’s face:

Sure, pedants might argue this does contain a face. But it doesn’t contain a useful image of a face. If this were actually useful, you’d think someone would have already knocked together an Alfred Hitchcock-based algorithm to identify people using only profile images.

In addition to the bad match, the officers actually didn’t have an arrest warrant when they arrested Crutchfield. All they had was permission to try to talk her into an interview with the detective (Marc Thompson) as a person of interest in the alleged shooting.

When Detective Thompson did finally interview the now-arrested Crutchfield, he offered up this embarrassing interaction completely unprompted:

PLAINTIFF noticed that the photos contained a heavy-set black woman wearing a bonnet, and DEFENDANT THOMPSON asked PLAINTIFF if that was her.

PLAINTIFF immediately stated “no” and explained to DEFENDANT THOMPSON that she does not wear bonnets.

DEFENDANT THOMPSON jokingly stated to PLAINTIFF that, “you got to admit it – that looks like you, and PLAINTIFF replied, “Why? Because I am fat and black like her?”

Not a great look for any officer from any American law enforcement agency, where racial profiling and long histories of biased policing are the norm. Crutchfield was finally released more than six hours after she was first arrested after she explained she couldn’t have been involved in the shooting because she had been at work and could prove it. At that point, both Detective Thompson and the other officer present during the interrogation agreed Crutchfield wasn’t the suspect they were looking for.

Even though it was only six hours, it still matters. It meant Crutchfield wasn’t able to go to her first job and was only barely able to get to work on time for her second job. And she spent the night at her second job traumatized by this bogus arrest, meaning she was of little use to the mentally challenged adults she cared for at that job.

On top of that, it’s clear no other investigation was performed before Crutchfield was warrantlessly arrested. The only thing officers relied on was a questionable match kicked out by an algorithm that had been fed even more questionable source images.

Hopefully, Crutchfield will secure a swift settlement from the city. The city has already had to pay out more than once for “detective” work that involved nothing more than someone running a cursory search and turning bad math into words and deeds that illegally deprived residents of their rights. Sure, the cops involved in this one won’t feel it hit their paychecks and will likely learn nothing from this, but the lack of deterrent shouldn’t prevent the city from compensating someone for wrecking up their life, if only temporarily.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, detroit pd, facial recognition, false arrest, lawsuit