Woman Wrongfully Accused by a License Plate-Reading Camera - Then Exonerated By Camera-Equipped Car (electrek.co) 174
CBS News investigates what happened when police thought they'd tracked down a "porch pirate" who'd stolen a package — and accused an innocent woman.
"You know why I'm here," the police sergeant tells Chrisanna Elser. "You know we have cameras in that town..." "It went right into, 'we have video of you stealing a package,'" Elser said... "Can I see the video?" Elser asked. "If you go to court, you can," the officer replied. "If you're going to deny it, I'm not going to extend you any courtesy...." [You can watch a video of the entire confrontation.] On her doorstep, the officer issued a summons, without ever looking at the surveillance video Elser had. "We can show you exactly where we were," she told him. "I already know where you were," he replied.
Her Rivian — equipped with multiple cameras — had recorded her entire route that day... It took weeks of her collecting her own evidence, building timelines, and submitting videos before someone listened. Finally, she received an email from the Columbine Valley police chief acknowledging her efforts in an email saying, "nicely done btw (by the way)," and informing her the summons would not be filed.
Elser also found the theft video (which the police officer refused to show her) on Nextdoor, reports Electrek. "The woman has the same color hair, but different facial and nose shape and apparent age than Elser, which is all reasonably apparent when viewing the video..."
But Elser does drive a green Rivian truck, which police knew had entered the neighborhood 20 times over the course of a month. (Though in the video the officer is told that a male driver in the same household passes through that neighborhood driving to and from work.) The problem may be their certainty — derived from Flock's network of cameras that automatically read license plates, "tracking movements of vehicles wherever they go..." The system has provoked concern from privacy and freedom focused organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and American Civil Liberties Union. Flock also recently announced a partnership with Ring, seeking to use a network of doorbell cameras to track Americans in even more places.... [The police] didn't even have video of the truck in the area — merely tags of it entering... (it also left the area minutes later, indicating a drive through, rather than crawling through neighborhoods looking for packages — but police neglected to check the exit timestamps)... Elser has asked for an apology for [officer] Milliman's aggressive behavior during the encounter, but has heard nothing back from the department despite a call, email, and physical appearance at the police station.
The article points out that Rivian's "Road Cam" feature can be set to record footage of everything happening around it using the car's built in cameras for driver-assist features. But if you want to record footage all the time, you'll need to plug in a USB-C external drive to store it. (It's ironic how different cameras recorded every part of this story — the theft, the police officer accusing the innocent woman, and that innocent woman's actual whereabouts.)
Electrek's take? "Citizens should not need to own a $70k+ truck, or even a $100 external hard drive, to keep track of everything they do in order to prove to power-tripping officers that they didn't commit a crime."
"You know why I'm here," the police sergeant tells Chrisanna Elser. "You know we have cameras in that town..." "It went right into, 'we have video of you stealing a package,'" Elser said... "Can I see the video?" Elser asked. "If you go to court, you can," the officer replied. "If you're going to deny it, I'm not going to extend you any courtesy...." [You can watch a video of the entire confrontation.] On her doorstep, the officer issued a summons, without ever looking at the surveillance video Elser had. "We can show you exactly where we were," she told him. "I already know where you were," he replied.
Her Rivian — equipped with multiple cameras — had recorded her entire route that day... It took weeks of her collecting her own evidence, building timelines, and submitting videos before someone listened. Finally, she received an email from the Columbine Valley police chief acknowledging her efforts in an email saying, "nicely done btw (by the way)," and informing her the summons would not be filed.
Elser also found the theft video (which the police officer refused to show her) on Nextdoor, reports Electrek. "The woman has the same color hair, but different facial and nose shape and apparent age than Elser, which is all reasonably apparent when viewing the video..."
But Elser does drive a green Rivian truck, which police knew had entered the neighborhood 20 times over the course of a month. (Though in the video the officer is told that a male driver in the same household passes through that neighborhood driving to and from work.) The problem may be their certainty — derived from Flock's network of cameras that automatically read license plates, "tracking movements of vehicles wherever they go..." The system has provoked concern from privacy and freedom focused organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and American Civil Liberties Union. Flock also recently announced a partnership with Ring, seeking to use a network of doorbell cameras to track Americans in even more places.... [The police] didn't even have video of the truck in the area — merely tags of it entering... (it also left the area minutes later, indicating a drive through, rather than crawling through neighborhoods looking for packages — but police neglected to check the exit timestamps)... Elser has asked for an apology for [officer] Milliman's aggressive behavior during the encounter, but has heard nothing back from the department despite a call, email, and physical appearance at the police station.
The article points out that Rivian's "Road Cam" feature can be set to record footage of everything happening around it using the car's built in cameras for driver-assist features. But if you want to record footage all the time, you'll need to plug in a USB-C external drive to store it. (It's ironic how different cameras recorded every part of this story — the theft, the police officer accusing the innocent woman, and that innocent woman's actual whereabouts.)
Electrek's take? "Citizens should not need to own a $70k+ truck, or even a $100 external hard drive, to keep track of everything they do in order to prove to power-tripping officers that they didn't commit a crime."
Should sue (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Should sue (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if you do sue, the officers are rarely held personally accountable. The taxpayers end up footing the bill and the officer either returns to working the same job or relocates to a new job in a different district, potentially at a higher pay level.
Re: Should sue (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Should sue (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure sue them, that's about the only recourse you have. But also write or call your representatives in the state legislature. Maybe see if anyone at the local news media will pick it up as a story, especially if the details are juicy. Embarrassing the officer publicly, especially after they lose a civil lawsuit can at least make it harder for them to escape their past
Re: Should sue (Score:3)
Thee are organisations that are both lobbying governments to stop using these cameras and challenging their constitutionality in court. (I believe the Institute for Justice is one such organisation). Spreading the word about their campaigns is one way to help.
Re:Should sue (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why cops should be required to purchase their own malpractice insurance, and be paid more so that the good ones can afford their premiums.
Re:Should sue (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why cops should be required to purchase their own malpractice insurance, and be paid more so that the good ones can afford their premiums.
That really doesn't solve the problem. It just increases the cost of law enforcement, whilst driving cops to make even more sure that they cover themselves.
The lessons of the Innocence Project [innocenceproject.org] has been completely not learned in America. The lesson is not that DNA evidence saved people. The lessons are that that:
The last one is really important. Justice is difficult everywhere, but, for poor people the US is really bad even compared to elsewhere. That's because very often innocent people end up accepting plea bargains and there is very little oversight. Plea bargains exist elsewhere, but for example in the UK, judges have to look over and accept them. That doesn't just help justice, it also forces the police to do proper investigations even if they get a confession or plea agreement which in turn forces a much betters standard of police investigations.
Re: Should sue (Score:2)
Re: Should sue (Score:4, Informative)
As I understand it, it's a matter of emphasis.
In the US the assumption is that the prosecutor makes the bargain with the defendant, sets all terms and then what is agreed is rubber stamped by the Judge except in exceptional circumstances.
In the UK the prosecution and defense go to the judge with a proposal but the presumption is that the judge will look at that and vary some of the terms.
Basically, most of the time you'd expect a UK judge to slightly vary the terms of the plea bargain depending on how they feel about it based on the case presented. This means that they are expected to read the case and make a judgement. The agreement between prosecutor and defense is not assumed to be final.
In the US, most of the time you'd expect the Judge to accept the terms of the bargain as they are presented, unless the judge gets some specific reason to doubt the justice of the bargain. This means the judge doesn't have to read the case, the case doesn't have to be fully investigated and judicial oversight is lost.
Re: Should sue (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We do have plea bargaining in the UK but it happens much more rarely. The more significant difference is that we don't have monetary bail.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Should sue (Score:2)
Re:Should sue (Score:5, Informative)
Should we apply that same standard to any public servant that can adversely impact a citizen's life? A school principal? A teacher? A judge? A Congress critter?
If that is going to be the standard for police, then it should be a universal standard with an enforcement mechanism that has teeth in addition to potential financial ramifications.
Re: (Score:3)
No. What should happen is: Accuse, "arrest," approach, or in any other way whatsoever harass or accost, someone who is not, in fact, guilty of the crime; and the "cop" instantaneously and forever loses every privilege or protection of the badge and is considered just another random violent thug to be treated like nothing more than that ever again.
Once enough of them are prosecuted for assault, battery, and kidnapping; and locked away never again to breathe free air or to look upon the sun or sky without b
Why the 'flamebait' mod? (Score:2, Interesting)
Why the hell the flamebait moderation??
We all know cops are pigs because of the way they act/protect each other, and yes suing them, and ideally their union funds paying for their defence of their incompetence/sloppy work instead of taxpayers footing the bill, will send the message people won't tolerate their bad actions.
Remember, this asshole cop say he was "100% sure" of the Trump-level bullshit he was spewing.
Re: (Score:3)
Do we really want officers reviewing exculpatory evidence and deciding someone's guilt "on the spot", or do we want to get a defense attorney, present the evidence in court and have a judge decide?
They review evidence and decide people aren't guilty every day. Have you ever actually contested a police officer's decision in court. Try challenging a traffic ticket sometime.
Day 1: Go to country court house to schedule a hearing
Day 2: Arrive at 8:00 am as ordered; Judge arrives at 9:00; 11:45 - Judge starts to hear cases of people who lack an attorney. Your case is called and you plead not guilty. A trial date is set for some time in the future. Takes less than 3 minutes.
Day 3: Arrive at 8:00 am as sche
Re: (Score:3)
It's possible the cop took this to a prosecutor, and the prosecutor told him something like:
"Look, Sergeant, I can't say for sure the lady in the Flock camera isn't your suspect, but I can't say that it is either. You've got her truck in the neighborhood, and a similar truck driving by but no license plate on the drive-by and no direct connection between the thief and the truck anyway. All this is suggestive but not proof beyond reasonable doubt, and if I can see that so can opposing counsel. If I bring
Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Not seeing that it's a problem that this was merely looked into at all.
The problem was how the information from the system was used, the refusal to actually view the video, etc. Not that oh noes, Flock even exists.
Re: Hmm (Score:5, Informative)
4 magic words: "Take me to court."
If they only show the video in court, then court it is. If you know you haven't been there, you know the video can't possibly show you there beyond reasonable doubt. And the moment they summon you, you have a right to see the evidence against you.
Re: Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not that easy - if you didn't have the self-recorded evidence you could be really stuck here. They could have an "expert" claim that the person they saw had to be you, based on some junk science that gives a false positive https://www.propublica.org/art... [propublica.org]
Perhaps the video is sufficiently grainy that you can't definitively prove it's not you. Then you've got a "walking gait analysis" "proving" that it's you walking up to the porch, an automatic number plate recognizing your plates, maybe even an unreliable eye witness who picked you out of a line-up where the cop coughed at the right time, and a cop saying you were evasive and lying about your alibi. Juries convict on much less.
Re: Hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
4 magic words: "Take me to court."
Those words aren't magic. They seemingly very much were going to take her to court. In court even if you win you still lose. Aside from any legal expense you may incur which you may actually not get back, you also have the wonderful joy of having to take one, or multiple days off work, congrats that just cost you more than a typical speeding fine. Seeing the evidence doesn't help you with any of this.
Re: Hmm (Score:2)
The case wouldn't have ever seen a day in court. Request the video and send back a photo of yourself to the prosecutor, together with "it isn't me on the tape, see photo." 5 minutes work, tops, on the woman's side.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Hmm (Score:2)
Exactly.
You'll get to see it once they bring up the charhe, in time before the first court proceeding. It's how due process works.
And of course it's the prosecution who'll give it to you, who else?
Re: Hmm (Score:4)
Exactly.
You'll get to see it once they bring up the charhe, in time before the first court proceeding. It's how due process works.
And of course it's the prosecution who'll give it to you, who else?
No that's now how it works. Once the video is entered in as evidence you have a court process to go through. This is *NOT* 5 minutes worth of work. It's clear you've never had any involvement with the legal system at all.
And it's not the prosecution who will give it to you. You will get it issued to you formally via the court.
Re: (Score:2)
2 magic words make this a no-win situation: lost wages
Re: Hmm (Score:2)
I'm betting this woman in the story lost more wages lutting together her own video & evidence than she would've by requesting evidence against herself, then sending back to the judge the magic 5 words "it's not me on video." Possibly attaching a photo of herself.
The judge / the prosecutor isn't a complete idiot. They would've looked at the video and the photo at least once before showing up in court and getting embarrassed.
Re: (Score:3)
They would've looked at the video and the photo at least once before showing up in court and getting embarrassed.
I think you overestimate how much they care if they make a mistake like this. They get paid either way. And as long as they are following standard procedure, they are protected from any personal embarrassment.
Re: (Score:2)
Good luck putting your life back together if you spend any amount of time in jail waiting for trial after you've lost your job and your housing. Hope you can afford to get your arrest expunged while you are living on the street with no job.
Re: Hmm (Score:2)
Why would you spend any time in jail, or lose your job?
Re: (Score:3)
Is there no penalty for the police in this case?
In the UK it would probably be an unlawful arrest, given that the cop didn't make the most minimal effort to confirm he had the right person.
Re: Hmm (Score:2)
I don't know about the US (nor from there). But in most civilized countries... nope. It's technically illegal, but the police usually get away with saying "oopsie, my bad" after an unlawful arrest and letting you go. No further consequences unless you can really prove intent, not just negligence or stupidity.
Re: (Score:2)
Here negligence would be enough to secure a substantial pay-out.
It's become a useful tool for dealing with cops who think all members of certain races look kinda the same.
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately, that in itself is a punishment. You miss time from work, often have to pay through the nose for an attorney, etc.
It may be the only recourse left, but it can be a costly one that wouldn't be necessary if law enforcement would be more conscientious.
The root cause here was a cop more interested in having a power trip and dumping on someone than in actual justice, law enforcement, or keeping the peace.
Re: Hmm (Score:2)
A clear cut case like this doesn't end up in court.
You get to ask for the evidence against you as part of due process. Then you get to submit your own to the prosecutor and tell them it wasn't you and that it's obvious bith from their video and from your own GPS traces.
Then they'll drop the charge.
They may be soulless ghouls sometimes, but they don't want to embarass themselves anymore than you & me.
Re: (Score:2)
You get to ask for the evidence against you as part of due process. Then you get to submit your own to the prosecutor and tell them it wasn't you and that it's obvious bith from their video and from your own GPS traces.
I don't think Colorado allows for discovery before the preliminary hearing takes place, which I assume is the hearing she received the summons for. Even at the preliminary hearing, discovery might be very limited.
Re: (Score:3)
That's why the U.S. has about 10 times the number of lawyers per capita than any other country.
The US doesn't have the most per capita, let alone 10x the most. You can google it.
Also lawyers have specialties, there are many reasons someone might have a law license. They're not all trial lawyers.
Re: (Score:2)
While the above was certainly exaggerating we definitely have an unusually large number of layers in this country and by a very large margin relative to the average for a country. https://worldpopulationreview.... [worldpopul...review.com] . That's good enough for the point they were making.
Re: (Score:2)
And one of the biggest numbers of prisoners per capita.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem was how the information from the system was used...
This is human condition. We can be certain that a significant number of people would always trust a system that is correct most of the time unless and until they encounter an error.
Re: (Score:2)
'unless and until they encounter an error." Oh? Given the current state of the pop., they don't even believe evidence that their beliefs are incorrect. They merely ignore the new information as "aberrant"....not wrong per se, just information they choose to ignore since it requires they change one of their beliefs.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
This is mainly because institutions and systems that used to teach people how to do wisdom are lost. Modern age has information and tools to process it, but not the methods and practices to deal with bias and self-delusion,
Perhaps those railing against high schools, colleges, and even post-graduate education, need to go back and deal with their *own* biases and self-delusions. The institutions and systems are there.
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Not seeing that it's a problem that this was merely looked into at all.
The problem was how the information from the system was used, the refusal to actually view the video, etc. Not that oh noes, Flock even exists.
I hear you, but I have a different angle.
What happens when the only evidence police have implicates SuspectA? They're going to focus on SuspectA, regardless of if SuspectA is innocent or not. Meanwhile the actual guilty party - who has no observed evidence trail - is going to be ignored. I think the flood of low-quality data in the form of poor cameras which aren't supposed to be recording other private property does disservice to investigations.
The same thing is going to happen in a court. "Well, this footage looks like it could be you, and we know your vehicle was in the area, and there's nobody else coming up at all, so the overwhelming evidence says it's you. And you wore a wig."
(Smart) criminals are going to game the system and won't show up. Innocent people will. This is the problem with blanket surveillance.
Re: Hmm (Score:3)
If it's a criminal proceeding, that's called "reasonable doubt". Of course. procedural errors happen, but generally, law has provisions for "we can't prove it's you, we just have a bunch of stuff that could match, but could also be of someone else."
Re: (Score:2)
The provisions are officially there. How often are they ignored?
Re: Hmm (Score:2)
I don't know. Do you?
I'm guessing it depends on your lawyer.
Re: (Score:2)
That's a pretty reasonable guess. There have been multiple reports of "public defender"s being acquiescent to illegal police tactics. If you just pick a lawyer off a list without having an established relationship (and not picking one that has made a name defending high profile trials), then they'll probably not push too hard against the local political structure.
Re: (Score:3)
If it's a criminal proceeding, that's called "reasonable doubt". Of course. procedural errors happen, but generally, law has provisions for "we can't prove it's you, we just have a bunch of stuff that could match, but could also be of someone else."
Thing is... we know people get wrongfully convicted. That's only one step worse than wrongfully accused.
Assuming for a moment that your lawyer can convince the judge/jury that the footage isn't quite good enough - which isn't a given - what does that cost you? In terms of time, in terms of money, in terms of reputation an accusation has a burden to it. There's always a stigma left over. "Where there's smoke, there's fire." Under many circumstances people will never look at you the same. We should be
Re: Hmm (Score:2)
That's a non-argument.
Of course people get "wrongfully accused / convicted all the time", but not all the people, every time, for any infraction.
And whrn they typically do, it's not because they failed to convince the police officer who stood at their door.
The lady in the story already had evidence to exonerate her. If it helped against a police officer, it would've convinced a judge, too.
And most likely, this proceeding would've never seen the inside of a courthouse. They don't just drag you to court, they
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Informative)
It's more than negligence. It became more when he refused to let her see the video.
Re: Hmm (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No you’re just seeing what has been happening for decades. The only difference is now it happened to a white, well off person. The police don’t care if they get the guilty person. They only care about the case being closed.
Re: (Score:2)
Not weird. (Score:2)
Stark raving normal.
Re: (Score:2)
Not seeing that it's a problem that this was merely looked into at all.
No, actually the problem is that it wasn't looked in to at all. It was just cut and pasted from a spreadsheet.
Re: (Score:3)
It's kind of a knock-on effect. *IF* we could actually trust cops to look at the evidence before they go accusing, threatening, and inconveniencing people with this bs, it might be something like acceptable. But we see over and over that we can't.
And that's BEFORE we consider the nefarious uses that could be made of the data. Unfortunately, we sometimes see evidence for that in the news as well.
See also, high school kid with a bag of Doritos.
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem in this case, as usual, was lazy government rather than big government. A government with high capacity to get things done is not necessarily bad, but usually government turns into a power trip or a mire of reasons that things cannot be done -- and big or effective government is bad in both of those cases.
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes! Yes, there are places where government works. Indeed, there are times in history where our (North American) governments worked!
Honestly, that's basically what DOGE found—the Federal government in America works surprisingly efficiently. Scientific research, conservation, foreign aid—all of it was extremely well run and delivered what they were supposed to. Even if you look at SNAP: for every 1 person a food bank feeds, SNAP feeds *9*.
There are so many good, efficient systems, and those are the ones being squeezed, while the big, bloated, ineffective systems are propped up by big corporations. That's things like the Military and the US Health System. Insurance companies are an insane drag on the whole system. Once you get into a hospital, the care is good, the problem is how much insurance companies are skimming off the top. I don't think we even need to talk about the grift in the military-industrial complex.
Law enforcement is one of those things that's PARTICULARLY lazy in North America, but in the USA in particular. Conservatives love a hard-on-crime platform, and Liberals love a strong union, that's how we got here.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Why is misinformation always wrapped in a podcast?
(The answer, BTW, is that gish gallops and false assumptions are easier to cover up in a linear format, where it's harder to rewind).
Anyway, in written form:
"Former DOGE engineer says he was 'surprised' by 'how efficient' the government is"
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/02... [npr.org]
Grepping through a database and claiming that terms you don't understand means "fraud" is fucking stupid, but it's what DOGE did. Their mission was about destroying stuff, and they succeede
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Informative)
The information presented in a podcast because long-form conversation is how rational human being explore the subject.
Podcasts are also a great source to cite because no reasonable person is going to spend a bunch of their time listening to a lengthy podcast just for the sake of an internet conversation so you can tell people your citation says whatever you want it to say.
Get a proper citation people will actually *read*. Your video here is 3 hours long, it's completely unreasonable to expect some one to wade through that whole thing for the sake of a casual internet conversation.
Re: (Score:3)
That is why all scientific publications are made via podcast. And all SEC filings are done in the form of podcasts.
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Interesting)
I like transparent and accountable government. The size is not critical to me, and it can depend on the functions that the government serves and its overall mission. (for example, a nation with world's most expensive military and the largest economy probably has a big government)
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Interesting)
I like transparent and accountable government. The size is not critical to me...
Larger more complex systems experience more entropy and require more effort to prevent de-cohesion. This is fundamentally why the larger in size the government the less likely it is to be transparent and accountable.
Re:Hmm (Score:4)
Or at least requires a lot more work to keep it together.
Organizing people in general is easier in small groups. Easier to take 5 people out for lunch without a hitch than 50. The later, I would recommend planning it at least a few days in advance if not a few weeks.
Getting a small group to agree to action, like in a club, small team, small charity, etc is relatievely straight forward and there is usually not too much fiction of politics involved. You start trying to get a community group, church group, or anything larger than about 20 people. The human factor leads to frequent disruptive power struggles and disagreements that must be resolved. It's why nearly any well-established political or volunteer organization has a formal parliamentary procedure for decision-making, such as Robert's Rules of Order.
Actually getting things done collectively is HARD work!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
But. It's not historically a correct endpoint for "societies". I believe the earliest attested cases are about 12,000 years old ( southern Egypt ? )
Re: (Score:3)
There's a long history of small towns being taken over by groups on one power trip or another until restrained (or removed) by a state or the feds.
The problem with "big government" is that there's no supervising entity with the power to restrain them. That power needs to be constrained by other power seems to be true at every scale. Abusive family members need to be constrained by the local govt. Abusive local govt.s need to be constrained by the states, abusive states need to be constrained by the feds,
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
abusive feds need to be constrained by...?
The voters.. perish the thought! Funny that they're always left out of the chain of command, when it is they who are needed to reelect corrupt politicians to 40 year careers to keep the blame passing game running
Re: (Score:2)
That only works if the feds are following the laws. And Gerrymandering in-and-of itself basically means that they intentionally aren't, without even looking at the other voter suppression methods.
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Interesting)
You can, absolutely, build bureaucracies to resist accountability and avoid transparency; where nothing is every anyone's fault in particular, and all the records are classified, and the department in charge of checking its own work invariably concludes that procedure was followed. It takes some doing because the amount of formalized process required to keep a large org from just disintegrating means that you can't help but leave a paper trail, meeting minutes, policy documents, etc. that all need to be sanitized or kept out of reach of discovery and meddling reporters; but is certainly doable, especially if you can apply steady pressure over a prolonged period of time.
The high-cohesion/small-size case, though, tends to degrade into the 'if the mayor, the sheriff, and the DA get along they can basically do whatever; if the sheriff is prickly enough they might not even need the DA' awfully quickly and easily. Crumbles more quickly if there's a falling out internally or something Bad happens that has FBI agents sniffing around, since there's no entrenched apparatus designed to create the impression that organizational norms are being upheld; but, if that doesn't happen, it can be very opaque since it's small enough that no formal management and only very limited recordkeeping are required; and accountability is effectively nonexistent.
Re: (Score:2)
btw (by the way) (Score:5, Interesting)
"btw (by the way)"
Why abbreviate the words, then explain what the abbreviation means?
Skip the abbreviation, then.
Re: (Score:3)
"btw (by the way)"
Why abbreviate the words, then explain what the abbreviation means?
Skip the abbreviation, then.
Primary language and then proper language. These days you go to speak the language of the street dawg... wait that was the 90s. Err... [calendar emoticon] [street emoticon] [language emoticon] [two people chatting emoticon] and then in brackets you write properly.
Micro$oft Sucks (have a nice day fellow Slashdotter)
Re: (Score:2)
News stories in the USA are written so middle schoolers can’t be confused while reading it.
Re: (Score:3)
This must stop (Score:3, Informative)
This was yet another of a myriad cases where police had trusted the image-recognition software without any manual review of the footage.
This can't go on. Would legislation have to be necessary for preventing it from happening again?
Re:This must stop (Score:5, Interesting)
They're already disappearing people in Portland (Score:2)
America has given up a lot of Liberty for the promise of a little bit of security and a whole lot of punching down
Re: This must stop (Score:3)
Extend you any courtesy? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Disclosure only works the case goes to court. A state-level FOIA law might help here.
The laziest and sloppiest basis for arrest (Score:5, Interesting)
The burden of proof continues to shift to the accused?
Clearly the state's evidence was faulty and the tools they're using are suspect.
The only reason this person was not unjustly dragged into court and very likely
coerced to [npr.org] plead guilty to [innocenceproject.org] a crime they did not commit [americanbar.org]
was that they paid for and submitted to constant surveillance.
It's always been on the accused (Score:3)
But the cops have been using nasty little tricks like this for a very very long time and calling it police work. There's a little new technology but in the old days they would just use what's called broken windows policing to hassle poor people in order to hit their quotas for arrests.
When crime rate
My video vs your video (Score:3)
I'd sue for expenses, lost wages, time spent at $200/hour to prepare my defence. Plus whatever. You'd want to pad that as much as possible.
Re: (Score:2)
*Beyond reasonable doubt*.
The "nu ah, it's fake" excuse typically doesn't hold up well in court. ... Historically, even when something was fake. The burden of proof is too high.
Misleading headline (Score:4, Informative)
"Accused by a License Plate-Reading Camera" but in fact the camera had merely recorded "a green Rivian truck, which police knew had entered the neighborhood 20 times over the course of a month".
trusting the counter-proof (Score:4, Interesting)
a) over here the video from the woman would be not admitted because it does not come from a certified device (e.g. the timestamps on the video would not be trusted). That is, of course, also true for the video used by the police. Unless it comes from certified cameras operated by the police, it should not be admissible.
b) in world of AI you can anytime generate video of you being 100 miles away from the crime scene. How is that supposed to be a relevant proof?
I don't know what's more dystopian (Score:5, Insightful)
The pigs using ubiquitous street camera surveillance to accuse the woman, or the woman using ubiquitous in-vehicle camera surveillance to prove her innocence.
No part of this story makes me warm or fuzzy.
It wasn't the license plate reader (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the real problem was when he was intimidating her she recorded intimidation and to be blunt she's not black so she lawyered up and beat the charges.
Basically this is just classic police abuse so that they can check off a conviction. There's several really nasty cases going on right now of police getting caught with quotas for DUIs and arresting sober people all over the country especially in the south. Tennessee just had a massive one.
The basic problem is every year crime goes down but every year we put more cops on the street because it's an effective political issue for politicians who can't actually run the country.
Too many cops and not enough crime. Sooner or later they have to come after you.
Re: (Score:3)
Because of their enthusiasm for working at or beyond the limits of their actual authority; you normally expect even dumb cops to have a decent instinct for the informal sociology of what they can get away with and against who. Columbine Valley, CO, household median income of ~$130k, over 50% over-40, most of the young under-18s presumably attached to households,
Cameras don't "accuse" people (Score:5, Insightful)
"Woman Wrongfully Accused by a License Plate-Reading Camera" .... no, she wasn't.
LPR cameras don't accuse people, nor do they order their arrests. An LPR camera takes a picture of a license plate, reads it using standard image processing algorithms, and provides the plate number and plate image to law enforcement for verification.
What happens next depends on the police. This wasn't a failure of technology, but instead a failure of investigative procedure by the Columbine Valley Police Department.
It was also a failure of Ring cameras, which are absolutely abysmal for security purposes. As the article pointed out, the porch pirate was never recorded getting into the Rivian. That's because Ring cameras don't provide continuous-time internal recordings, since it would interfere with Ring's subscription model. Even a $50 Wyze Cam + memory card would have shown who got into and out of the vehicle.
The accused woman's Rivian was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and captured in the background during the recording of a crime. The CVPD added 2 plus 2 based on incomplete evidence, and got 5.
Nicely Done (Score:3)
No sir...this should be an embarrassment to your department.
Proper investigations should have been done. They were not.
Your police force is a farce.
IQ (Score:2)
Studies have shown that cops are at best of average intelligence. But studies have also shown that cops rate the highest in arrogance.
Re: (Score:2)
They're smarter than most criminals they deal with, who are typically of sub-average intelligence.
Tell the cop to fuck themselves with a broomstick (Score:2)
That you will go after their badge personally, and that the judge will back you in this.
98% chance they chicken out. 2% chance you have to go after their badge, and the judge will back you.
Feedback loop (Score:3)
The real problem is that "officer" (Score:2)
A clear case of misuse of his powers. Should bar him for life from any law-enforcement job.
Similar situation (Score:4, Interesting)
After a couple minutes, a couple officers came in. said I was identified as a guy who was at the local airport threatening an airline employee. I went outside with them after having the rink manager watch my kid.
I got the whole "This will go a lot easier on you if you just confess" thing. I had no idea what I was supposed to confess to, and told them that. When they asked for my whereabouts at 7:00 PM Christmas night, I told them I was at my parents place, with 20 plus relatives and friends at that time, and I would be very happy to have every single one testify that I was there.
One bit of funniness was when they asked for my ID, I told them it was in my car. They replied "Do you think that's a safe place for it? I replied "A lot safer than in a skating rink where I'm being falsely accused" I replied. They got a laugh out of that. They said something wasn't adding up, would I be willing to wait until they could bring the victim to ID me from a distance? I said sure.
So the male cop gets the victim, while I wait with the lady cop. We chatted, and she said "This is really strange!" I said, "Really embarrassing for me as well."
Victim takes a look at me and tells the male cop I was taller, a lot more muscular, wore glasses, different hairstyle and didn't look like the guy who threatened him. So The victim waited in the police vehicle while I went back to the rink. In this case, unlike the women in the article, the officers apologized and thanked me. the male officer went into the rink, and told my accuser it wasn't me, then came back out and told me they insisted it was.
At that point, I was finished with the BS and ready to take this to the criminal level. I asked the cop if he could go back in, and let the accuser know that if there was anything more - any further accusation at all, I would call the officers back and file a false accusation criminal report, and to let them know that the officers would be two of my 20 plus witnesses, family friends, wife son, Victim, and that I do not settle, had the resources, and I would enjoy every second of it. Officer was laughing when he came back out. "Some days huh, sir?" "Yeah, some are better than others." We shook hands and they left.
That's proper officer conduct.