List of All Articles with Tag 'us crime news'

Mexico extradited Ovidio Guzmán López, a son of former Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, to the United States on Friday to face drug trafficking charges, US attorney general Merrick Garland said in a statement. “This action is the most recent step in the Justice Department’s effort to attack every aspect of the cartel’s operations,” Mr Garland said. The Mexican government did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Mexican security forces captured Mr Guzmán López, alias “the Mouse,” in January in Culiacan, capital of Sinaloa state, the cartel’s namesake. Three years earlier, the government had tried to capture him, but aborted the operation after his cartel allies set off a wave of violence in Culiacan. January’s arrest set off similar violence that killed 30 people in Culiacan, including 10 military personnel. The army used Black Hawk helicopter gunships against the cartel’s truck-mounted .50-caliber machine guns. Cartel gunmen hit two military aircraft forcing them to land and sent gunmen to the city’s airport where military and civilian aircraft were hit by gunfire. The capture came just days before US president Joe Biden visited Mexico for bilateral talks followed by the North American Leaders’ Summit. On Friday, Mr Garland recognized the law enforcement and military members who had given their lives in the US and Mexico. "The Justice Department will continue to hold accountable those responsible for fueling the opioid epidemic that has devastated too many communities across the country.” In April, US prosecutors unsealed sprawling indictments against Mr Guzmán and his brothers, known collectively as the “Chapitos.” They laid out in detail how following their father’s extradition and eventual life sentence in the US, the brothers steered the cartel increasingly into synthetic drugs like methamphetamine and the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl. The indictment unsealed in Manhattan said their goal was to produce huge quantities of fentanyl and sell it at the lowest price. Fentanyl is so cheap to make that the cartel reaps immense profits even wholesaling the drug at 50 cents per pill, prosecutors said. The brothers denied the allegations in a letter. The Chapitos became known for grotesque violence that appeared to surpass any notions of restraint shown by earlier generations of cartel leaders. Fentanyl has become a top priority in the bilateral security relationship. But Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has denied assertions by the US government and his own military about fentanyl production in Mexico, instead describing the country as a transit point for precursors coming from China and bound for the US. López Obrador blames a deterioration of family values in the US for the high levels of drug addiction in that country. An estimated 109,680 overdose deaths occurred last year in the United States, according to numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 75,000 of those were linked to fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. Inexpensive fentanyl is increasingly cut into other drugs, often without the buyers’ knowledge. Read More El Chapo’s son, three Sinaloa cartel leaders and two Mexican firms sanctioned for bringing fentanyl into US Case details Sinaloa cartel's fentanyl-fueled evolution Mexican capo's arrest a gesture to US, not signal of change Big week for US-Mexico ties going into North American summit Drug lord, trafficker, killer of wedding singers: How the ‘New Mouse’ followed in the bloody footsteps of his father El Chapo

Prosecutors have responded to Alex Murdaugh’s allegations of jury tampering at his double murder trial stating that South Carolina investigators have found “significant factual disputes” with the claims. The South Carolina Attorney General’s Office filed the response on Friday moving to dismiss Murdaugh’s request for a new trial due to “procedural defect”. The filing, which came just under deadline on Friday afternoon, is the state’s first response to the allegations made in the defence’s bombshell motion last week. Murdaugh demanded a new trial after his legal team accused Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill of pressuring jurors to return a guilty verdict. Prosecutors also said that they want Murdaugh’s defence team to show that they did not know about the alleged jury tampering during the murder trial. Ms Hill has not commented publicly on the allegations. The response from the state on Friday comes a day after a smiling Murdaugh appeared publicly for the first time since he was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of his wife Maggie and son Paul, this time to face a string of financial fraud charges. At the status hearing in Beaufort County, Judge Clifton Newman set the trial date for 27 November. The case will focus on the millions of dollars he stole from the family of his dead housekeeper Gloria Satterfield, part of the 101 state charges in response to his alleged financial crimes. Two former friends and alleged co-conspirators in the case also appeared in court on Thursday, former Palmetto State Bank CEO Russell Laffitte and former attorney Cory Fleming, the latter sentenced to 10 years in prison. Read More Smiling Alex Murdaugh appears in court in shackles as trial date set in financial fraud case Alex Murdaugh’s demand for new trial over jury tampering claims awaiting response as deadline looms – live

A suspect identified by a “large red swastika tattoo” on his chest was arrested for allegedly taping a razor blade to a handrail at a Salvation Army Church in Pennsylvania, police say. Benjamin Burton Brower Jr, 30, attached a three-inch blade to a handrail on steps leading to the front door of the church in Altoona, Blair County, on Sunday afternoon, the Altoona Police Department said in a statement. “APD officers were dispatched to the Salvation Army Church, 1813 6th Ave, after Brower was seen on surveillance cameras taping razor blades to the hand railing at the church entrance,” the Altoona police said. “Brower was shirtless during the incident and identified by a large red swastika tattoo on his chest.” According to a probable cause affidavit obtained by WTAJ, Mr Brower was seen walking onto church grounds at around 3pm on Sunday wearing red shorts and an open vest exposing his swastika tattoo with a green camouflage backpack. He then retrieved several items from the bag and taped the blade, with the sharp side up, to a metal handrail. The church holds public services at 10.30am, Sunday school at 11.30am and provides free meals to the community at a 4.30pm soup kitchen. The razor was removed by the church pastor at around 5.15pm, and no one was injured. Swastikas are widely recognised as symbols of hate, antisemitism and white supremacy. Mr Brower was arraigned on charges of aggravated assault, institutional vandalism at a place of worship, recklessly endangering another person, and other offences on Wednesday, police said. He is being held at Blair County Jail on $10,000 bail. Read More Parents of Philadelphia teacher found dead with 20 stab wounds lose battle to overturn suicide ruling Escaped murderer Danelo Cavalcante told officials he planned to carjack someone and flee US Mother arrested for abandoning toddler in stroller on side of LA street

A man has been charged with assault after he allegedly shoved a passenger onto subway tracks in Manhattan. Derrick Mills, 49, was arrested on Thursday in connection with the attack on 74-year-old Trevor Crawford. The assault, which New York City transit officials have described as “disgusting” and unprovoked, took place at the 68th Street-Hunter College station on the Upper East Side on Tuesday. Mr Mills allegedly shoved Mr Crawford off the downtown platform after making eye contact with him. The victim landed on his back and suffered a broken spine as well as five fractured ribs and pelvis. “He was so fast, he came around the other side, he opened his eyes wide. I wasn’t scared, I was just more nervous,” Mr Crawford recounted in an interview with PIX11. “[He yelled,] ‘Didn’t I tell you not to say anything to me?’” Following the attack, Mr Crawford was pulled from the tracks by an MTA employee. The suspect then fled before authorities arrived at the scene. Mr Crawford was returning home from work when the assault unfolded. He was transported to a hospital, where he was briefly treated in the intensive care unit. “I must worry because I work at night, but I never expected it to happen to me,” Mr Crawford told PIX11. “ ...anyone would be happy. There’s one less troublemaker on the street.” The incident was captured in surveillance footage that the NYPD released to the public. A person who recognised Mr Mills, who is reportedly homeless, tipped authorities. The NYPD had offered a reward of up to $3,500 for information that led to an arrest. He was then arrested near West 80th Street on Thursday night and has since confessed to the crime, the New York Post reports. “We’ve said over and over that if you commit a crime in the New York City subway system, your picture will be taken, the NYPD will find you, and we will press for maximum prosecution,” NYC Transit President Richard Davey said in a statement after the arrest. “This was a disgusting incident that understandably unsettled riders, and we appreciate the rapid arrest that was assisted by a New Yorker who saw a photo of the perpetrator that was taken by a station platform camera.” Read More NYPD release pictures of man and woman suspected of repeatedly stabbing subway passenger on train Citibank workers clash with climate activists outside New York office in protest over fossil fuel funding Rudy Giuliani goes on unhinged rant claiming Mike Pence’s wife leads him around on a leash

A mother has been arrested after allegedly abandoning her young child on the side of a California street. Early Tuesday morning — in the middle of the night at 2.50am — a person walking in Larchmont Village in Central Los Angeles found a 3-year-old girl alone inside a stroller. The youngster, found on the 100 block of North Larchmont Boulevard, was taken to hospital to be examined. She was found to be in good health. The police searched the stroller and found an identification card belonging to Targie Alexandre, 24. After this, police were able to locate the father of the child, but Ms Alexandre’s location was unknown. "We’ve had a lot of resources devoted to this over the past day, from officers, detectives, we’ve had our bloodhounds out there," said Lt. Brian Churchill of the Los Angeles Police Department. "We’ve had no luck finding the mother so we’re asking for the public’s help right now." However, Ms Alexandre was arrested on Wednesday night after police were waiting for her at her workplace, police said. She has been charged with a felony of child endangerment and is being held on $105,000 bail. The felony punishment for child endangerment is up to six years in state prison and a fine of up to $10,000. Earlier this year, a Georgia woman was arrested for the 2019 abandonment of her newborn baby after it was found alive in a plastic bag. The mother, Karima Jiwani, was charged with criminal intent to commit murder, cruelty to children in the first degree, aggravated assault and reckless abandonment. Read More Mother of ‘Baby India’, left to die in a plastic bag in Georgia woods four years ago, is finally arrested Man sentenced for abandoning baby after MLB pitcher Dennis Eckersley's daughter gave birth in woods Family suspect murder after getting alerts from dead LA woman’s Apple products

Escaped prisoner Danelo Cavalcante has revealed how he survived almost two weeks on the run from law enforcement in Pennsylvania, following his dramatic capture by a police dog called Yoda. US Marshall Robert Clark told ABC News that the convicted killer had been very candid after he was captured on Wednesday morning. He told investigators how he evaded capture and survived in the woods by eating watermelon. “He stated he intended to carjack somebody in the next 24 hours and that he was going to head north to Canada,” Mr Clark said. “He said on multiple occasions law enforcement officers almost stepped on him, [that] we were only five or six feet away.” Pennsylvania officials said that tactical teams closed in on Cavalcante on Wednesday morning and the inmate began to crawl through heavy underbrush to get away. At that point, Yoda, a four-year-old Belgium Malinois, set out to subdue the escapee, leaving him with a face bloodied from a bite. Cavalcante had escaped from Chester County Prison on 31 August – days after he was sentenced to life for fatally stabbing his ex-girlfriend Deborah Brandao. He is also wanted for a 2017 murder in Brazil. Read More Where has Danelo Cavalcante been spotted since his Pennsylvania jailbreak? Fugitive Danelo Cavalcante’s mother defends his murders and says ‘everyone is lying about him’ Dog the Bounty Hunter may join search for Danelo Cavalcante

A family, including two children and an elderly woman, endured a terrifying ordeal when they were held at gunpoint by masked burglars. The beyond-scary home invasion happened on Monday in Orange County, California, at around 10.40pm when the disguised intruders entered the family’s home on a quiet residential street. When the invaders entered the home, one of the masked men used a stun gun on an adult male in the family, forcing him onto the ground, the City of Westminster Police said in a statement. The man, an elderly woman and two children — a 14-year-old boy and a 7-year-old girl — were all tied up in the living room. The suspects then demanded to know where they kept their valuables. In one alarming photo released by police, two robbers in masks can be seen gesturing for the family to get on the floor. The 7-year-old is pictured flat out by the suspect’s feet. The burglars then ransacked their property looking for anything of value, the New York Post reported A fifth victim, an adult female, was able to hide inside a closet while the home invasion was taking place. She called 911 and whispered down the phone that she needed help. As the officers arrived within three minutes, they saw four burglars sprint from the front door of the residence. One of the suspects, identified by police as Danny Sommay, was caught outside after he threw his handgun over a brick wall. The police recovered the firearm and found it to be a loaded 9mm pistol that had been reported as stolen. The Huntingdon Beach Police Department dispatched a helicopter to try and locate the missing three suspects, but were unable to locate them. Authorities did not say whether any of the victims needed medical attention or if the man hit with the stun gun was injured. Mr Sommay has been booked into Orange County Jail on charges of kidnapping, robbery, burglary, conspiracy to commit a felony, possession of a loaded and stolen firearm and armed criminal action on a $1 million bail. Read More Woman agrees to plead guilty to murder of college student who stopped to help her near off-the-grid encampment Man killed for asking robbers to return his ‘blinging’ gold chains, court told California lawmakers sign off on ballot measure to reform mental health care system

Shanna Gardner, the ex-wife accused of orchestrating the death of Microsoft executive Jared Bridegan, appeared in a Washington court on Thursday to dispute her extradition to Florida. Ms Gardner appeared in Benton County Superior Court after Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed an extradition order, the Jacksonville State Attorney’s Office told News4Jax. The extradition hearing was an attempt by Ms Gardner’s attorneys to prevent her extradition to Duval County where she faces charges of first-degree murder, solicitation to commit first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and child abuse. The ex-wife of Bridegan is accused of hatching a murder-for-hire plot with her second husband, Mario Fernandez, to kill Bridegan by hiring Henry Tenon to shoot him. Bridegan was dropping off his two children at Ms Gardner’s home in Jacksonville Beach when he was ambushed and fatally shot. One of his other children was in the car at the time. Ms Gardner, who resides in Washington state, was arrested on 17 August – more than a year after Bridegan was killed. The Independent has reached out to Jacksonville State Attorney for comment. Read More Ex-wife charged with murder of Microsoft executive Jared Bridegan Microsoft exec Jared Bridegan was shot dead in a chilling ambush. Did his ex wife arrange it?

Five adults and a teenager were arrested on murder charges after the decomposing body of a female was discovered in the trunk of a car outside a Korean spa called Jeju Sauna in Duluth, Georgia. Investigators say that the victim had been starved and beaten for weeks and was in such bad condition that detectives initially had a difficult time determining the victim’s gender. Police say that the shocking discovery was made after one of the suspects, who was in hospital, asked a family member to collect something from the car when the grim discovery was made and the police were called. The discovery sparked a homicide investigation and detectives believe the victim moved to the US from South Korea over the summer to join a religious group called Soldiers of Christ. Here’s what we know. How was the body discovered? Investigators claim that Eric Hyun, 26, parked a silver Jaguar sedan outside of Jeju Sauna on 12 September before calling a family member to pick him up, police said. That family member then drove the 26-year-old to an Atlanta area hospital “due to unrelated injuries.” While he was in the hospital, Mr Hyun asked his relative to retrieve something for him from the car; that’s when the family member noticed “what appeared to be a deceased body in the trunk,” prompting the relative to call 911. This 911 report launched an investigation. Gwinnett County detectives then searched a home “associated with” Mr Hyun in Lawrenceville, allegedly finding evidence to suggest the basement of the home was where the crime took place, officials wrote. Police are now investigating the death as a homicide. Who are the suspects? Six people have been arrested and charged in connection to the death, police said on Thursday 14 September. Five adults — Eric Hyun, 26, Juoonhyum Lee, 22, Joonho Lee, 26, Hyunji Lee, 25, and Gawon Lee, 26 — have been arrested and charged with felony murder, false imprisonment, tampering with evidence and concealing a death, according to police. A 15-year-old minor was also arrested. Police added that the suspects “referred to themselves as belonging to ‘Soldiers of Christ.’” “Detectives believe all suspects are currently in custody, and there are no outstanding individuals,” officials added. Who was the victim? Due to the body’s decomposed state, investigators couldn’t initially identify the victim’s gender, police previously told WSB-TV. Police have said the victim is a female, but her identity has not been released yet as her next of kin lives outside of the US and have not yet been officially notified. The victim, investigators discovered, seemed to have moved from South Korea to the US over the summer for the “purpose of joining a religious organization.” She appeared to have been starved and beaten for weeks, police added. As the victim weighed only 70 pounds at the time of her death, the Medical Examiner’s Office believes malnourishment could be a contributing factor, officials wrote. Still, her exact cause of death is being investigated. Police previously said they believed that the victim could have known or been related to the suspects. Where was the body found? Although the body was found in the parking lot outside of Jeju Sauna, the business appears to be completely unrelated to the incident. The owner of Jeju Sauna told Fox 5 about the surveillance video; the footage captured a man pulling up to the spa in the Jaguar alongside a Mercedes on Tuesday morning. The owner added that the man looked in the Jaguar trunk before getting into the Mercedes and taking off. Later that night, the owner told the outlet, the video showed the Mercedes returning — just as police arrived at the scene. There was a foul odour from the trunk, the owner added, suggesting that the body had been there for a while. Jeju Sauna said in a statement that the incident had “absolutely nothing to do with” the business, but merely happened in the parking lot outside it. “The safety and well-being of our customers have always been our utmost priority,” the statement said. “We are fully cooperating with local law enforcement authorities who are currently investigating the matter. We are confident that they will bring those responsible to justice swiftly.” Read More Five people arrested on murder charges after body found in trunk of car linked to ‘house of horrors’ Alex Murdaugh’s financial trial date set as he appears in court for first time since murder conviction – live Danelo Cavalcante planned carjacking to flee to Canada before capture - latest updates

A smiling Alex Murdaugh appeared in court on Thursday to face a string of financial fraud charges – in what marks his first court appearance since he was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of his wife Maggie and son Paul. The convicted killer attended a status conference before Judge Clifton Newman in Beaufort County on Thursday morning where his financial crimes trial date was set for 27 November. The case will focus on the millions of dollars he stole from the family of his dead housekeeper Gloria Satterfield – part of the 101 state charges over his alleged financial crimes. Two former friends and alleged co-conspirators in his financial crimes also appeared in court on Thursday – former Palmetto State Bank CEO Russell Laffitte and former attorney Cory Fleming The court appearance comes as the deadline is looming for the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office to respond to a bombshell motion filed by Murdaugh’s attorneys last week in which they demanded a new trial and accused Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill of pressuring jurors to return a guilty verdict. The AG’s office had 10 days to respond to this motion – giving them until Friday. Read More Smiling Alex Murdaugh appears in court in shackles as trial date set in financial fraud case An Alex Murdaugh juror gained infamy with a dozen eggs. Now she’s at the centre of his bid for a new trial Will Alex Murdaugh be granted a new trial? Legal expert weighs in Alex Murdaugh accuses ‘fame seeking’ court clerk of jury tampering at his murder trial

Former attorney Corey Fleming was sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges that he conspired with his longtime friend Alex Murdaugh to steal millions of dollars from trusting clients. Fleming previously pleaded guilty to the financial fraud charges that stem from Murdaugh’s alleged scheme to steal money from the estate of his dead housekeeper Gloria Satterfield. Satterfield died in a fall on the Murdaugh property in 2018. He was also involved in stealing money from the family of Hakeem Pinckney – a man whose family Murdaugh represented after he was killed in a car crash in 2009. While Fleming knew Murdaugh was asking him to do wrong, he previously said he didn’t realise the depth of his old friend’s depravity. The sentencing was handed down on the same day Fleming’s longtime friend Murdaugh appeared in court for his own hearing on financial fraud charges for the first time since he was sentenced to life in prison in the murders of of his wife Maggie and son Paul. Judge Clifton Newman set a trial date for 27 November. On 15 August, Fleming pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges and was sentenced to nearly four years (46 months) in federal prison. He is housed at the Charleston County jail awaiting a prison assignment. On 23 August, he pleaded guilty to all state charges. Judge Newman scheduled Fleming’s sentencing for today in Beaufort so that the court could hear from friends and family members, as well as victims. At the hearing on Thursday, prosecutor Creighton Waters urged the judge to not be fooled by Fleming’s claims that he was “recruited” by Murdaugh into stealing from the families of Satterfield and Pinckney. Mr Waters argued that Fleming, who was an attorney at the time, was hired to represent the families but then “behind the scenes colluded with the defendant”. “What Mr Fleming wants the court to believe is… that he was tricked and fooled by Mr Murdaugh like everyone else,” Mr Waters said. The prosecutor then pointed to the fake Forge scheme in which Murdaugh allegedly set up a firm called Forge - a fake company with the name of a real one, which was used to siphon off money from clients. Murduagh and Fleming are accused of securing payouts from insurance companies in Satterfield’s case and then sending nearly $4m in stolen money to the fake company. “It was a shakedown, plain and simple,” Mr Waters said of Fleming and Murdaugh’s treatment of the Satterfield family. At the hearing on Thursday, several people addressed the court on behalf of the victims. Tony Satterfield, the son of Gloria Satterfield, told the court, “I still forgive Mr Fleming.” Satterfield’s sister also addressed the court and said that the family forgives Fleming. “Gloria did not die in vain as her case brought out other corruption and dishonest misdeeds being done to others,” she said, adding that it brought corruption “to light”. Attorney Eric Bland, who represents the Satterfield family, spoke at the hearing and said the law profession is “stained” by Fleming’s crimes. Fleming surrendered his license to practice law in both Georgia and South Carolina, saying he dishonored the profession. “The profession we love has been stained,” he said. “Mr Fleming knew exactly what he was doing. He is a plaintiff lawyer... it is impossible.” He said the debacle involving Murdaugh, Fleming and Laffitte, has “stained our state.” Mr Bland said the judge and court will hear how Fleming is a good guy, but that “good guys can still do criminal things.” “I’ve been suing other lawyers for 30 years. Never seen a case where the lawyers took every single dollar. But that’s what Fleming and Murdaugh did. Every single dollar.” Mr Bland also went over several examples of violations and irregularities in how Fleming handled and filed the Satterfield case to show the depth of the conspiracy and the criminal behaviour. He says Fleming and Murdaugh sat on the $4.3m settlements knowing that Gloria Satterfield’s son Brian, a vulnerable adult, was being put out on the street because his mom’s trailer was being foreclosed on. Mr Bland called it “blatant thievery”. Fleming is the second Murdaugh associate ordered to prison since investigators began scrutinising every aspect of Murdaugh’s life in June 2021 after his wife and son were shot to death at their South Carolina home. Russell Laffitte, who was convicted of federal charges in November, appeared for a status conference on Thursday in his state case. One of his attorneys, South Carolina State Rep Todd Rutherford, asked the judge to delay a trial until the fall of 2024. Judge Newman said that he would make a ruling at a later date. Last month, Laffitte was sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to helping Murdaugh steal money from settlements for clients after vehicle wrecks or work injuries. Laffitte is appealing his conviction and sentence. Read More Smiling Alex Murdaugh appears in court in shackles as trial date set in financial fraud case Outrage as South Carolina lawmaker stands to shake hands with convicted killer Alex Murdaugh in court Alex Murdaugh’s friend pleads guilty to helping steal from dead maid’s family

On 16 February, Porcha Woodruff was helping her children get ready for school when six Detroit police officers arrived at her door. They told her she was under arrest for a January carjacking and robbery. She was so shocked she wondered for a moment if she was being pranked. She was eight months into a difficult pregnancy and partway through a nursing school programme. She did little else besides study and take care of her kids. She certainly wasn’t out stealing cars at gunpoint, she said. “I’m like, ‘What,?’ I opened my door so he could see my stomach. ‘I’m eight months pregnant. You can see two vehicles in the driveway. Why would I carjack?’” she told The Independent. “‘You’ve gotta be wrong. You can’t have the right person.’” Her children cried as she asked officers if the suspect was pregnant and insisted they had mistakenly arrested her. She was put in handcuffs and taken to jail, where she had panic attacks and early contractions. She later learned police identified her as a suspect after running security footage through the department’s facial recognition software, relying on a 2015 mugshot from a past traffic arrest into a photo lineup where the carjacking victim singled out Ms Woodruff as her assailant. The Detroit Police Department eventually dropped the case, but the arrest has deeply shaken Ms Woodruff. “What happened to the questioning? What happened to me speaking to someone?” she said. “What happened to any of the initial steps that I thought were available to a person who was accused of doing something?” The case underscores the growing risks of civil rights violations as police departments and law enforcement agencies across the country increasingly adopt facial-recognition and other mass surveillance technologies, often used as an unreliable shortcut around methodical human police work. Criminal justice advocates and the people targeted by this burgeoning police tech argue these programmes are riddled with the same biases and opaque or nonexistent oversight measures plaguing policing at large. The early results, at least, haven’t been encouraging. At least six people around the US have been falsely arrested using facial ID technology. All of them are Black. These misfires haven’t stopped the technology from proliferating across the country. At least half of federal law enforcement agencies with officers and a quarter of state and local agencies are using it. “We have no idea how often facial recognition is getting it wrong,” Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), told The Independent. “When you have facial recognition being used thousands of times, without any accountability for mistakes, it’s inviting injustice,” he added. Nowhere has that injustice been more pronounced than Detroit, a city where Black people have long experienced documented over-policing from law enforcement. Three of the six people mistakenly arrested by facial recognition technology have been in the Motor City, according to the ACLU. This status quo is why Ms Woodruff is suing DPD, claiming among other things that the agency has engaged in “a pattern of racial discrimination” against her and other Black residents “by using facial recognition technology practices proven to misidentify Black citizens at a higher rate than others in violation of the equal protection guaranteed by” the Michigan civil rights statutes. “I definitely believe that situation would’ve gone differently had it been another race, honestly, just my opinion. There was no remorse shown to me and I was pregnant. I pleaded,” she told The Independent. “Being mistaken for something as serious as that crime – carjacking and armed robbery – that could’ve put me in a whole different type of lifestyle,” she added. “I was in school for nursing. Felons cannot become nurses. I could’ve ended up in jail. That could have altered my life tremendously.” The Independent has requested comment from DPD. After Ms Woodruff filed her suit, Detroit police chief James White said in a press conference in August “poor investigative work” led to the false arrest, not facial recognition technology. He claimed that department software gave detectives numerous possible suspects and was only meant to be a “launch” point for further investigation. “What this is, is very, very poor investigative work that led to a number of inappropriate decisions being made along the lines of the investigation, and that’s something this team is committed to not only correcting, having accountability, having transparency with this community, and in building policy immediately to ensure regardless of the tool being used, this never happens,” Mr White said. He added that officers won’t be allowed to use images sourced by facial recognition in lineups, and warrants based on facial ID matches must be reviewed by two captains before being carried out. ‘The lead and the conclusion’ Some aren’t convinced these changes will prevent the excesses of what they see as a fundamentally flawed technology. “The technology is flawed. It’s inaccurate,” Philip Mayor, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Michigan, told The Independent. “Police repeatedly assured us that it’s being used only as an investigative lead, but what we see here in Detroit time and time again is it is both being used as the lead and the conclusion.” Studies suggest that facial-recognition algorithms, which have been used to capture suspects in high-profile cases like those connected to January 6, also fail to accurately identify Black people and women, driving up inequalities in arrests, because image-training datasets often lack full diversity. However, according to Mr Mayor, police departments make things even worse by failing to do basic training and common-sense investigative work on top of facial recognition tools. He represents Robert Williams, a Detroit man who was mistakenly arrested for a 2020 theft from a high-end Detroit boutique. A security contractor employed by the store worked with the city and state police and flagged Mr Williams’ name using facial recognition tools. How police came to trust that Williams was the right man reveals the sloppiness of how facial ID tech is used in practice, according to the ACLU attorney. After the theft, police searched a database containing both past photos of Mr Williams and his present-day driver’s license. ‘It picks out 486 people who are the most likely perpetrators; not a single one of them is his current driver’s license, even though his current driver’s license is in the database that was searched,’’ Mr Mayor said. “That seems like an obvious exculpatory fact, the kind of thing that would lead you to say if you were actually thinking, this isn’t the right guy.” When these dubious matches are then used to build a line-up, questionable police work attains the gloss of near-fact, and witnesses choose from a group of people who may have no credible tie to a crime that took place but still look something like the person who did. “This is not me,” Mr Williams told police during his investigation, according to The New York Times. “You think all Black men look alike?” The father of two, after asking a local police voluntarily stop using facial recognition technology, sued the DPD in 2021. “This technology is dangerous when it doesn’t work, which is what the cases in Detroit are about. It’s even more dangerous when it does work. It can be used to systematically surveillance when we come and go from every one of the places that are important in our private lives,” the ACLU attorney said. “I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that departments elsewhere right now are not making the same mistakes.” ‘A force multiplier for police racism’ Detroit isn’t the only place grappling with the impacts – and errors – of this technology. In Louisiana, the use of facial recognition technology led to a wrongful arrest of a Georgia man for a string of purse thefts. A man in Baltimore spent nine days in jail after police incorrectly identified him as a match to a suspect who assaulted a bus driver. The Baltimore Police Department ran nearly 800 facial recognition searches last year. Those cases and others have added to a growing list of misidentified suspects in a new era of racial profiling dragnets fuelled by tech that is rapidly outpacing police and lawmakers’ ability to fix it. Facial recognition software often is “a force multiplier for police racism,” worsening racial disparities and amplifying existing biases, according to Mr Cahn. It can spur a vicious cycle. Black and brown people are already arrested at disproportionate rates. These arrests mean they are more likely to enter a database of faces being analyzed and used for police investigations. Then, error-prone facial recognition technology is used to comb these databases, often failing to identify or distinguish between Black and brown people, particularly Black women. “So the algorithms are biased, but that’s just the start, not the end of the injustice,” Mr Cahn says. Such technologies, advocates warn, are embedded in wider mass surveillance programmes that often lack robust public oversight. In New York City, law enforcement agencies relied on facial recognition technology in at least 22,000 cases between 2016 and 2019, according to Amnesty International. New York City’s Police Department spent nearly $3bn growing its surveillance operations and adding new technology between 2007 and 2019, including roughly $400m for the Domain Awareness System, built in partnership with Microsoft to collect footage from tens of thousands of cameras throughout the city, according to an analysis from STOP and the Legal Aid Society. The NYPD has failed to comply with public disclosure requirements about what those contracts – from facial recognition software to drones and license plate readers – actually include, according to the report. Until 2020, that money was listed under “special expenses” in the police budget until passage of the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology Act. The following year, more than $277m in budget items were listed under that special expenses programme, the report found. “We’ve seen just concerted pushback from police departments against the sort of oversight that every other type of government agency has because they don’t want to be held accountable,” according to Mr Cahn. “If we treated surveillance technology vendors the way we treated other technology vendors, it would be like Theranos – police would be arresting some of these vendors for fraud rather than giving them government contracts,” he added. “But there is no accountability.” On 7 August, 2020, New York City Police Department officers in riot gear launched a six-hour siege outside Derrick Ingram’s Hell’s Kitchen apartment. Mr Ingram – a racial justice organiser who is embroiled in a federal lawsuit against the NYPD – was surrounded by more than 50 officers after he allegedly shouted into an officer’s ear at a protest earlier that summer. Police insisted they had a warrant on assault charges, but couldn’t produce one when Mr Ingram asked them to, according to his suit. The whole encounter, in which the NYPD deployed snipers, drones, helicopters, and police dogs, began with facial recognition technology. “To say that I was terrified is an understatement – I was traumatized, I still am,” Mr Ingram later testified. “I fear deep down in my core that if I opened my door to those officers, my life would be swiftly taken.” To identify Mr Ingram as a potential suspect, NYPD relied on facial recognition software “as a limited investigative tool, comparing a still image from a surveillance video to a pool of lawfully possessed arrest photos,” according to a police statement, adding that “no one has ever been arrested solely on the basis of a computer match.” The software pulls from a massive internal database of mugshots to generate possible matches, according to the department. Civil rights groups and lawmakers criticized the department’s use of facial recognition – initially hailed as a tool to crack down on violence offenders – for being deployed to suppress dissent, and triggering a potentially lethal police encounter at Mr Ingram’s home. As for Ms Woodruff in Detroit, she hopes her experience can show the dangers of relying too heavily on facial recognition technology. “It may be a good tool to use, but you have to do the investigative part of using that, too,” she said. “It’s just like everything else. You have your pieces that you put together to complete a puzzle.” Her life would’ve been a whole lot different, she said, if “someone would’ve just taken the time to say, ‘OK, stop, we’re going to check this out, let me make a phone call.’” Read More Detroit police changing facial-recognition policy after pregnant woman says she was wrongly charged White House science adviser calls for more safeguards against artificial intelligence risks How a Drake concert put NYPD’s ‘arsenal’ of surveillance technologies under the spotlight