Woman Pulled over at Gunpoint Twice After Flock Camera Glitch
A Wisconsin woman was twice held at gunpoint by police due to a faulty license plate recognition system that failed to remove an outdated homicide alert. The incident highlights the risks of relying on automated surveillance systems without proper human oversight.
Why it matters
It raises critical questions about the reliability of law enforcement technology and the potential for severe civil rights violations due to administrative errors.
Technology is supposed to make police work faster and safer. Most of the time it does. But every so often, a computer system hiccups, and an ordinary person ends up staring down the barrel of a gun for no reason at all. That is exactly what happened to Amber Newell of Brookfield, Wisconsin, not once, but twice in the span of a single week.
Newell was driving on I-94 near Milwaukee last Thursday afternoon when a Flock camera, an automated system that scans license plates and checks them against police watch lists, flagged her car as connected to a homicide investigation. Within moments, Brookfield officers had her vehicle surrounded, guns drawn, and a passenger’s hands out the window in plain view of passing traffic and plenty of cell phone cameras, reported Local 12 .
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