It’s not uncommon to hear about wrongful and unjust arrests from police; it’s just that they seem to be becoming more frequent these days. Now, it appears wrongful arrests have also started getting worse, especially for a Black man in New York named Trevis Williams. The NYPD arrested Williams after a facial recognition AI used by the cops assisted in pinning him as the suspect, who also happened to be Black.
The buildup to this incident began as early as February 10 in Manhattan, as investigated by The New York Times. A woman reported a crime to the police, stating that she was sexually harassed by a Black man, about 5’6″ tall. The suspect also worked for Amazon. NYPD then relied on an algorithm-based AI that pulled facial recognition data from smartphones connected to the internet. Two months later, the NYPD got a facial match from a database of mugshots: 36-year-old Trevis Williams, who was 6’2″ tall.
The NYPD ran the algorithmically identified mugshot collection by the victim, and she initially agreed that Williams looked like the suspect; hence, Williams was arrested and jailed for over two months, starting in April. However, Williams only looked similar because, like the suspect, he had the same hairstyle. Other details didn’t match; Williams was much taller, much heavier, and also didn’t work at Amazon. NYPD arrested and jailed the wrong man.
“In the blink of an eye, your whole life could change,” alleged Williams, transcript courtesy of The New York Times
Additionally, Williams was only coincidentally in New York to visit a friend on the day of the incident. He only had a mugshot in the NYPD’s database for a dismissed misdemeanor assault earlier in February for fighting an ex-girlfriend’s current boyfriend. The police also didn’t even contact Amazon to investigate the suspect, and instead interrogated Williams.
People Online are Worried About Their Facial Information
Thankfully, Williams got lucky again, as the case was dismissed in July, and he is now free. However, he suffered much injustice at the hands of the police, who kept insisting that he was the suspect despite being 8 inches taller than the suspect, as reiterated by the victim. NYPD’s string of wrongful arrests using facial recognition software supposedly began as early as 2022 in a similar case with Williams’, but for murder.
Meanwhile, people online are worried about how the police could further implement such an “imperfect” technology into their investigations, especially given how most smartphones forcibly keep data online now. Consequently, negative sentiments about cops have intensified online in one thread discussing what happened to Trevis Williams and other similar cases.
“Remember, the police unions fought tooth and nail to ensure that no form of education was required to become an officer in America,” discussed on Reddit user
“Cops are actively getting worse at their jobs.”
“Which is impressive considering how very bad they were already,” responded another
“Dumb cops using AI to generate probable cause is concerning.”
