“No investigation was conducted to determine if Ms. Crutchfield was the suspect, and a facial recognition database was used to identify her,” says the lawsuit, which also alleges that the Detroit Police Department’s facial recognition systems are vulnerable to racial bias.
A Michigan woman has filed a lawsuit against the Detroit Police Department, claiming that officers used faulty facial recognition technology to identify her as a suspect in an attempted murder.
According to NBC News, plaintiff LaDonna Crutchfield was at home with her children on January 24, 2024, when police officers arrived to her home and placed in her handcuffs. She was purportedly “identified as suspect” in an attempted murder “by an unknown facial recognition database.”
“No investigation was conducted to determine if Ms. Crutchfield was the suspect, and a facial recognition database was used to identify her,” says the lawsuit, which also alleges that the Detroit Police Department’s facial recognition systems are vulnerable to racial bias.
Attorneys for Crutchfield say that Detroit police officers could have easily avoided making a false arrest by taking common-sense precautions. Investigators had, for instance, already ascertained the name of a suspect—not Crutchfield. They could have also easily assessed that Crutchfield is substantially shorter than the alleged shooter.
Detroit Police Assistant Chief Charles Fitzgerald has since acknowledged that the department made a mistake, but has said that it did not use facial recognition technology to identify Crutchfield as a suspect.
“Facial [recognition] was never run,” he said. “In this case, it was never submitted.,”
“I can’t get into many details because of the ongoing litigation, but I can unequivocally tell you facial recognition was not used with this plaintiff,” he said. “A license plate came back from the shooting scene that was connected to this plaintiff.”
Fitzgerlad said that police linked Crutchfield to the murder after attempting to match a partial license number plate. According to Fitzgerald, there was sufficient evidence for officers to suspect that Crutchfield may have been in the crime—but conceded that officers did not dig “deep enough.”
“The plate also had that there was this woman [the actual suspect] who had a young kid with them in the car,” Fitzgerald said. “[Crutchfield] has a young child. But unfortunately, they didn’t just go deep enough to look to see that it’s also connected to another female that fits the description who has since been charged in this case.”
Crutchfield, a 37-year-old mother of three, says that the experience was traumatic.
“It was very embarrassing,” she said. “This changes people’s lives. […] My daughter, every time someone knocks on the door, she thinks it’s the police.”
Crutchfield is seeking $10 million in damages.
Sources
Detroit police falsely arrested woman after faulty facial recognition hit, lawsuit says
Detroit woman suing police, claiming faulty facial recognition technology led to unjust arrest
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