DETROIT, MI – Police officers arrested a Black woman, LaDonna Crutchfield, falsely because of a faulty facial recognition match in January 2024, and now the woman is suing, according to The Root.
According to The Root, “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 (who) claimed the officers told her they had a warrant for her arrest but never told her what for.”
The Root adds one officer said, “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.”
According to The Root, an officer told her “you got to admit it looks like you,” and Crutchfield said, “Why? Because I am fat and Black like her?”
Crutchfield, according to The Root, witnessed the officers search their system and found she was facing charges of assault with intention to commit murder, and “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.”
According to The Root, “Crutchfield was handcuffed behind her back and stuffed in the back of a patrol car.”
The Root states “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. Crutchfield argues facial recognition was used to match her to the lady in the picture.”
“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,” according to the lawsuit, wrote The Root.
