License plate scanner usage by law enforcement has exploded in the last decade or so. One company that makes the software used in the scanners saw a near 3,000 percent increase in usage in the period of 2017-2019. Even a decade ago, millions of plates were being scanned using the tech. So we must wonder, is law enforcement always right when it uses the tech? It doesn’t look that way, as a lawsuit out of Michigan shows.
The Detroit Free Press reports that Isoke Robinson is suing the Detroit Police Department after she was arrested and her 2013 Dodge Charger was impounded when police acted based on their license plate scanner and an assumption when responding to reports of a drive-by shooting.
Instead of punching in a suspected license plate number and finding out whether cameras in the city’s network had captured one similar to it in the vicinity of the shooting, police worked backwards. Using descriptions and photographs of the shooter’s vehicle, they looked at which license plates passed a specific license plate reader around the time of the shooting and determined which of those plates belonged to a white Dodge Charger, according to deposition testimony. The license plate reader they used was about 2 miles from the scene of the shooting on Detroit’s east side, but only a couple of blocks from Robinson’s home.
Basically, the cops did a half-assed job. There was a police report that had a description of the Charger, but none of the details added up: the report said the suspect’s Charger had one fog light that didn’t work, yet police never checked to see if the fog lights on Robinson’s Charger worked. Freep also mentions they never checked the car for evidence, even after the car was in their possession. Mind you, police also had high-res images of the suspect’s Charger thanks to Detroit’s multi-million-dollar network of citywide cameras.
During Robinson’s arrest, a SWAT team surrounded her and her two-year-old autistic son while they were sitting in the Charger in the driveway of her home, cooling off in the car by using the A/C. Her son was placed in the back of a police cruiser and her car was impounded for nearly a month over the incident. Now the city has a lawsuit on its hands, as Robinson is suing for an unspecified amount. She says her job at one of Stellantis’ plants was affected too; she had to pay $300 to get her car out of impound, and police never returned her license or her work badge.
Robinson’s lawyer says the way she was arrested was excessive. “Showing up to her house at night with a SWAT team, essentially, is excessive. It terrifies the citizens. It makes them look like criminals to their neighbors, and it also increases the risk that there’s going to be an unfortunate incident where the cops shoot someone,” he said to Freep.
Amazingly, the lead investigator on the case, Detective Dion Corbin, recently testified that he still believes Robinson’s Charger was involved in the shooting, even though he “can’t make any connection between Robinson and the shooter and never investigated the vehicle in ways that could have confirmed or dispelled his suspicions.”