Creating Safety
Porsha Woodruff is the third victim of police use of facial recognition technologies in Detroit. Like Mr. Robert Williams, her arrest last January was at her home in front of her children, by a team of six police officers. On what should have been a normal day preparing her two daughters for school, police arrested her, took her to the Detroit Detention Center, held her for 11 hours, and seemed oblivious to the fact that she was 8 months pregnant, having contractions and panic attacks. After being released with a $100,000 bond, she went straight to the hospital to be treated for dehydration and to ensure that her baby was stabilized.
Ms. Woodruff was forced to deal with the police and courts until after the birth of her child. Nowhere in the investigation of the carjacking and robbery of which she was accused was there any evidence that the woman involved was pregnant. It should have been obvious from the moment she opened the door that the police were in the wrong place, talking to the wrong person.
Last week Ms. Woodruff also became the third person to file a lawsuit against the city for wrongful arrest because of the use of facial recognition technologies. Her life, like those of the other two victims, was substantially disrupted, leaving scars that go far beyond immediate discomfort.
The Detroit Police Chief James White acknowledged this was “shoddy” police work, but refused to look at the use of these technologies as a contributing factor. Instead White said that no facial recognition policies had been violated. He announced a series of policies designed to limit the use of facial recognition photos in lineups.
This response is not sufficient for the magnitude of harm individuals are experiencing. We have seen nothing to indicate that the 125 uses of facial recognition every year justifies the millions of dollars we spend on it. This technology cannot stop crime. It can only record incidents as they happen. And that recording has proved consistently to be inaccurate.
Beyond the tragedies that Ms. Woodruff, Mr. Williams, and Mr. Michael Oliver all have endured there are larger questions about the role of police in our communities. Why was a team of six officers dispatched in the early morning hours to a home in a neighborhood to arrest a woman on suspicion of a carjacking? Ms. Woodruff had no history of violence. Why was she taken to the police station rather than given an opportunity to talk with police? Why did the police not stop the moment she was seen, obviously pregnant?
The answers point to the disrespect and disregard held by the police for the people of Detroit, for our well-being, and for basic rights. The police assume people are dangerous and guilty, and should not be treated with respect or care. They should be intimidated into confessions. Thus Mr. Williams was held for 30 hours on an obvious misidentification. Michael Oliver spent 10 days in jail and lost his job.
This attitude infuses every encounter with police. It is behind the killings of so many people over these past few years. In the name of reducing crime, police are behaving in criminal ways, with almost no accountability.
More than a year ago the Coalition for Police Transparency and Accountability, formed in response to the killing of Hakim Littleton, asked for federal oversight of the Detroit Police Department. This week, Ricardo Moore, an elected member of the Board of Police Commissioners, also asked for such intervention. He is concerned with “public trust” and “police corruption.”
In contrast to this attitude by police, people across the city celebrated initiatives to improve neighborhood life. In the Islandview community, we learned that "Violence, especially gun violence, is virtually nonexistent in this area because we provide people with the things they need." The kind of neighborhood organizing going on here begins with deep respect and love for people. Regine Head, who provides much of the organizing spirit in the neighborhood, teaches us, "Out of everything we're going through, the youth are at the heart of it. We are intentional on investing in our youth and building them up to be the best versions of themselves from their own perspectives, not how the world sees them or how society molds them to be." We know how to create safe, loving communities.