Police dangers

The dangers of Detroit’s unaccountable police department were on display this week. In a saga that is becoming all too familiar, the reliance on an expensive technology led to the detention of a young woman, the traumatizing of her small son, and the costly disruption of her daily life. In this case, Isoke Robinson was attacked by a SWAT team while sitting in her car with her son on a warm night, using the air conditioning to lessen the impact of the heat. 

The police had deduced her car was involved in a non-fatal drive by shooting. They found her car by depending on expensive license plate reader technology.  There was no evidence that Ms. Robinson’s car, or Ms. Robinson, had any connection to the shooting. Ms. Robinson is now suing the city for unreasonable seizure, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment and negligence. She and her son still experience distress from the incident.

This is one of many from a growing list of police abuses of technology.  As a recent article in the Detroit Free Press commented:

“Robinson's case raises new concerns about "Big Brother" surveillance and artificial intelligence run amok, in a city where government-controlled cameras are proliferating and facial recognition technology, which Detroit also uses, has on several occasions contributed to police arresting the wrong Black suspect.”

This case is especially troubling because it comes on the heels of efforts by citizens to warn the Board of Police Commissioners and the City Council that this technology is dangerous, unregulated, and fraught with the potential for abuse.

Over the last few years, the Detroit Police Department, the Mayor and some of the city council have consistently disregarded public efforts to raise concerns about the adoption of technologies without proper restraint.

Time and again the Police Department argues that every new technology is needed to fight “violent” crime. Often their arguments are crafted by the advertising departments of the technology companies and their claims of effectiveness are contradicted by real world research.  But unmoved by these arguments, the DPD, Mayor and Council keep spending exorbitant amounts of money on new gadgets designed to control and watch citizens. In the case of license plate readers, the original technology cost $19.5 million in 2019. Last year the city spent another $5 million to expand the system.

The drive for technologies of control lead to a citizen initiative to create an ordinance to demand the police provide a full report on the need and impact of new technologies and hold public hearings allowing for, and listening to, citizen concerns. In 2021 the council adopted a Community Input Over Government Surveillance (CIOG) ordinance. 

This ordinance was essentially rendered meaningless by actions of some city council members.  

More troubling, in efforts to hold the police accountable to even this low standards of public reporting codified here, the Police and Mayor argued in an lawsuit based on the ordinance that “the city council can approve contracts for surveillance technology regardless of whether members follow an ordinance which guarantees public oversight of how those tools are used.” 

In the name of making us more secure, the Mayor and DPD argue they do not need to follow the law.

It is obvious the judgment of the police cannot be trusted. The Board of Police Commissioners and the City Council need to hold the police accountable and to respect the voices of citizens. The current CIOG ordinance needs to be strengthened. But more importantly, we the people need to find more effective ways to control the police. A good start would be to make our presence known at the upcoming budget process and demand serious limits on police spending. We can spend our money more wisely and strengthen our communities.