A 32-year-old Detroit, Michigan, woman is taking legal action against the city after she was falsely accused of carjacking and robbery due to a facial recognition error.
Porcha Woodruff was eight months pregnant at the time of her arrest on Feb. 16, according to news reports. Now months later, she filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for Eastern Michigan with Detroit Police Detective LaShauntia Oliver, identified as a defendant in the suit, according to NBC News citing court documents.
Woodruff initially thought the several officers who appeared at her home were joking when they presented the arrest warrant, according to the report. She was getting her kids ready for school upon their arrival, telling the New York Post that she “was scared” and that there “was no sympathy” from law enforcement. The outlet reported that she was in jail for hours before she was released on a $100,000 bond and transported to a local hospital for medical treatment, where she was having contractions due to stress.
The lawsuit said Woodruff found out that she was taken into custody because “she was implicated as a suspect in a photo lineup shown to the victim…following an unreliable facial recognition match,” NBC News reported.
