How many times do we have to tell y’all to stop using that facial recognition stuff on Black people?! The most recent allegations about how that technology doesn’t work comes from the wrongful arrest of a Detroit mother who claims she was falsely identified as a shooting suspect.
LaDonna Crutchfield told Detroit News the incident happened back in January of 2024 when she was minding her Black business in the comfort of her home. Her lawsuit says she had just gotten home from work and was lying in bed reading to her 5-year-old daughter.
The suit says her niece, who was also in the home, heard a knock at the door and answered to see five police officers. The cops requested to speak to Crutchfield, the suit says. Crutchfield claimed the officers told her they had a warrant for her arrest but never told her what for.
“I’m trying to do this politically correct, OK. You got to go to jail today, but I don’t want to do this in front of the kids,” said one officer to Crutchfield, according to the body camera video cited in the suit. “So, basically, you had to go to court. They summoned you to court and you didn’t show up. I don’t know if it got lost in the mail or whatever, but it says that you have a warrant for your arrest. All this means is that you have to come to court.”
The suit says Crutchfield was handcuffed behind her back and stuffed in the back of a patrol car. She told Detroit News she saw the officers type into their system she was facing charges of assault with intent to commit murder. At the station, Crutchfield’s suit says a detective told her she was a shooting suspect and showed her a picture of a Black woman wearing a bonnet.
“You got to admit it looks like you,” the cop said to her, per the suit.
“Why? Because I am fat and Black like her?” Crutchfield said she responded.
Crutchfield’s suit says after she told them she was at work at the time of the shooting, the officers then discussed among themselves that they didn’t believe she was behind the shooting. One officer then scrambled to get her released, but not before forcing her to give her fingerprints and a DNA mouth swab for no specified reason, the suit says.
The report says the police have denied the use of the facial recognition database and claimed they identified her based on the license plate taken from the scene of the crime. However, Crutchfield argues facial recognition was used to match her to the lady in the picture.
It wouldn’t be the first time Detroit police got in trouble for facial recognition. The city previously agreed to pay $300,000 to a Black man who was falsely identified as a shoplifter.
Crutchfield requests $10 million in damages.