A Detroit mother claimed in a lawsuit last Fall that her and her 2-year-old were the victims of a horrifying police interaction. Upon her demand for justice, the city finally gave a response to the suit but don’t hold your breath, it’s quite underwhelming.
The city of Detroit agreed this week to pay Isoke Robinson in a settlement agreement following a September 2023 traffic stop that went terribly wrong, per The Detroit Free Press. In her lawsuit, Robinson says she was sitting in her car when she was confronted by a group of 10 cops who suspected her vehicle was connected to a drive-by shooting that occurred a few blocks away from her home. However, the police identified her car based on the description of a white Dodge Charger using pictures along with their wonky-working license plate reader that uses city cameras to find plates close to the one in question, per The Free Press.
Robinson claims the police then handcuffed her before throwing her and her autistic, toddler son in the back of a police cruiser. He “wouldn’t stop crying,” according to her lawsuit. The suit says the cops then searched and impounded her vehicle, which was her only form of transportation and also contained her personal belongings. They refused to give her car and belongings back for three weeks, the suit says.
Robinson was never criminally charged, but still demanded justice for what she considered a wrongful detainment. In response to her lawsuit, the city denied any wrongdoing in the incident despite the police department admitting in an internal affairs memo that the officers “improperly identified” Robinson’s vehicle as the one from the shooting, the report says. The city still agreed to pay out Robinson $35,000 but Robinson’s attorney says that was the least they could do.
“Throughout the litigation, I got the impression that the Detroit Police Department saw this as just part of the process and that sometimes the wrong person might get caught up in something because of the license plate readers,” said attorney Paul Matouka via the Free Press.