A Detroit woman, Porcha Woodruff, 32, has filed a lawsuit against the city and a police detective, asserting that she was wrongfully arrested due to an error in facial recognition technology while she was eight months pregnant.
Woodruff was preparing her two children for school on the morning of February 16 when her day was interrupted by six police officers presenting her with an arrest warrant for robbery and carjacking. Despite being visibly pregnant, according to court documents, led her initially to believe the officers “were joking,” Woodruff was arrested.
According to the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Michigan, the sequence of events began when a man was robbed and carjacked after leaving a BP gas station. The victim reported that his phone, taken during the robbery, was returned to the gas station two days later by a woman. Detective LaShauntia Oliver, assigned to the case, used facial recognition technology on surveillance footage from the gas station, which allegedly identified Woodruff as the woman who returned the phone.
When another individual was arrested driving the stolen vehicle on February 2, Detective Oliver did not present a picture of Woodruff for identification, as stated in the court documents. Additionally, the lawsuit alleges that when the victim identified Woodruff from a lineup, Detective Oliver used a photograph from 2015, rather than her current driver’s license photo.
On the day of her arrest, Woodruff and her fiancé requested officers to confirm whether the suspect in question was pregnant, a request the officers allegedly declined. Later that evening, after spending 11 hours inside the Detroit Detention Center, and being charged and released on a $100,000 personal bond, Woodruff sought medical care. She was diagnosed with a low heart rate due to dehydration and was experiencing contractions, believed to be from the stress of her arrest.
A month after the arrest, on March 6, the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office dismissed the case against Woodruff citing “insufficient evidence”.
According to NBC News, Sunday, the prosecutor’s office issued a statement stating that the warrant for her arrest was “appropriate based upon the facts.” The case was eventually dismissed, not by the prosecutors but by a judge’s decision. This decision was made after the victim failed to appear during a preliminary hearing meant to assess whether there was sufficient evidence to prosecute. The statement from the prosecutor’s office also clarified that facial recognition technology had led the police to include Woodruff’s photo in a six-pack of potential suspects, contributing to her arrest. The statement emphasized that a victim’s unwillingness to testify does not automatically lead to dismissal, and it remains unclear if the prosecutors requested the case be dismissed.
The troubling saga of Porcha Woodruff stands as a stark and alarming indication of a system failing those it’s meant to serve. Woodruff, now the sixth individual, and the first woman, to report being falsely accused due to automated facial recognition technology, is part of a pattern that transcends her individual case. All six of those wrongly accused have been Black.
According to an investigator’s report from the Detroit Police Department, this saga began with an automated facial recognition search. This is not an isolated incident. It marks the third such case involving the Detroit Police Department, drawing sharp focus on a department that runs an average of 125 facial recognition searches a year. The shocking revelation: these searches are almost exclusively conducted on Black men.
These numbers, provided by the police to Detroit’s Board of Police Commissioners, a civilian oversight group, paint a deeply concerning picture. Critics of the technology have been vocal, arguing that these cases illuminate not just individual errors but a systemic weakness. The dangers posed to innocent people, and particularly to communities of color, are not abstract. They are real, tangible, and life-altering.
According to Washington Post, at least two others have filed lawsuits against the Detroit police after they were arrested following an erroneous match on facial recognition software. A 2019 case prompted the department to revise its guidelines, limiting its use to only violent crime or home invasion investigations.
“Facial recognition technology has long been known for its inherent flaws and unreliability, particularly when attempting to identify black individuals such as Porcha Woodruff,” the lawsuit stated. “It should be understood that facial recognition alone cannot serve as probable cause for arrests.”
In September, U.S. House lawmakers introduced a bill to regulate and rein in law enforcement’s use of the technology, stating that “a lack of greater transparency and reasonable limits on its use threatens Americans’ civil liberties.”
The case of Porcha Woodruff and others in Detroit demonstrates a critical need for scrutiny, oversight, and perhaps reconsideration of the way facial recognition technology is employed. It is not merely a question of technological accuracy but one of justice, fairness, and the integrity of a system that is, for some, failing to uphold its most fundamental principles.
The Detroit Police Department “is an agency that has every reason to know of the risks that using face recognition carries,” said Clare Garvie, an expert on the technology at the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, according to New York Times. “And it’s happening anyway.”
As the debate over the use of facial recognition technology intensifies, the very real human toll, as evidenced by the experience of Woodruff and others like her, must remain at the forefront of the conversation. The quest for efficiency must never eclipse the imperative for accuracy, empathy, and the inviolable dignity of all citizens. The question we must all grapple with is clear: What price are we willing to pay for convenience, and what might we lose in the process?
On Thursday, Woodruff filed a lawsuit alleging false arrest, false imprisonment and a violation of her Fourth Amendment rights to be protected from unreasonable seizures against the city of Detroit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
Detroit Police Chief, James E. White, commented on the allegations presented in the lawsuit, expressing that they are “very concerning”.
“We are taking this matter very seriously, but we cannot comment further at this time due to the need for additional investigation,” White said in a statement. “We will provide further information once additional facts are obtained and we have a better understanding of the circumstances.”
Notably, this is the third known allegation of a wrongful arrest by the Detroit Police Department based on reliance on a false facial recognition match in three years. The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Michigan, and the University of Michigan Law School’s Civil Rights Litigation Initiative (CRLI) represent Robert Williams, who experienced a similar situation as Woodruff, in his lawsuit against the same department for wrongfully arresting and jailing him in January 2020 based on faulty facial recognition technology. Williams’ case is ongoing, with legal briefing set for this fall.
“It’s deeply concerning that the Detroit Police Department knows the devastating consequences of using flawed facial recognition technology as the basis for someone’s arrest and continues to rely on it anyway,” said Phil Mayor, senior staff attorney at ACLU of Michigan in a statement. “As Ms. Woodruff’s horrifying experience illustrates, the Department’s use of this technology must end. Furthermore, the DPD continues to hide its abuses of this technology, forcing people whose rights have been violated to expose its wrongdoing case by case. DPD should not be permitted to avoid transparency and hide its own misconduct from public view at the same time it continues to subject Detroiters to dragnet surveillance.”
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