Wrongful stop

A federal jury ruled against Bexar County after Alek Schott was pulled over in March 2022 on Interstate 35 when his license plate was flagged by a reader. Schott was detained for 76 minutes and a K-9 search found nothing. The jury awarded $76 and found the stop violated his Fourth Amendment rights. Attorneys for Schott are seeking an injunction against such stops.

In September 2026, a federal jury in San Antonio found Bexar County liable for an unconstitutional traffic-stop program using Flock surveillance cameras. The jury ruled that the March 15, 2022 stop of Alek Schott on Interstate 35 violated his Fourth Amendment rights. Flock cameras flagged Schott’s truck as suspicious, and a deputy stopped him, held him for over an hour, and searched his vehicle. The jury awarded Schott $76, one dollar per minute of detention. Court documents show the county’s operation ran for four years and targeted countless motorists.

In September 2026 a federal jury in Texas ruled for Alek Schott, who sued Bexar County and its sheriff over a 2022 traffic stop that began with automated license plate reader data. The jury awarded $76, one dollar for each minute he was detained. Schott was stopped in March 2022 driving home from Carrizo Springs; a deputy later admitted the stated reason, lane drifting, was bogus, and Schott’s dashcam showed no drifting. The tip came through a law enforcement WhatsApp group from someone called Kiki with access to license plate reader data, citing Schott’s one-day turnaround. A drug dog alerted and the truck was searched; nothing was found. The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office touts its use of Flock Safety cameras.

Body camera footage published by 404 Media shows Florida police officer Lamar Roman explaining he used department databases and license plate reader cameras to stalk a woman he met on the set of Apple TV’s Bad Monkey. Roman illegally looked up her information, placed her plate on a police ‘hot list’ that alerted him to ALPR hits, sped to follow her, and pulled her over. He said, ‘I saw a shiny thing, teasing and all that.’ An investigator told the victim that deputies had been told ‘that’s not what it’s for. You see a hot chick, you don’t look them up in a database.’ Roman used an ALPR system called Guardian made by Turing.

On August 6, 2026, Brookfield police conducted a gunpoint stop of a Milwaukee woman after a Flock license-plate camera flagged her vehicle as connected to a homicide. The alert was an outdated National Crime Information Center entry that a Milwaukee detective had failed to remove after an earlier stop on July 27. Milwaukee police admitted the data error stemmed from personnel failure, not a flaw in Flock’s technology. The woman was released. She later retained attorney B’Ivory LaMarr, who planned to file a notice of claim against the city of Milwaukee. The incident was the second time in 10 days the woman was stopped at gunpoint over the same outdated alert.

The Los Angeles Police Department’s Office of Inspector General audited two months of Flock Safety stolen-vehicle hot-list alerts from August and September 2025. Of 498 alerts, 161 were false positives: vehicles the system flagged as stolen were not stolen. The remaining 337 alerts led to recovered vehicles, about one in three alerts wrong. The audit attributed the errors to hot-list data, not plate reads: recovered vehicles not cleared from lists, outdated theft reports and uncorrected data-entry mistakes. The OIG recommended suspending new ALPR camera deployments and contracts pending public input and a broader reassessment of vendors and data practices. LAPD’s three-year 2023 agreement for 138 pole-mounted cameras expired July 11, 2026 and was not renewed, with the department citing privacy and data-ownership concerns. At the July 15 Police Commission meeting, officials said they were negotiating a new contract giving the city ownership of all plate data.

An audit released July 11, 2026 by the LAPD Office of the Inspector General found that during a two-month review period (August 1 to September 30, 2025) officers acknowledged 161 automated license-plate-reader ‘hot list’ alerts as accurate stolen-vehicle matches that were in fact wrong, generally because outdated data was never cleared after a vehicle was recovered. LAPD policy requires verification before stopping, but the audit found this frequently did not happen, and false hits triggered high-risk stops. Following the audit, LAPD let its data-sharing contract with Flock Safety expire.

In August 2025 the City of Chicago agreed to settle Williams v. City of Chicago, a class action brought on behalf of two men who were stopped and frisked after ShotSpotter alerts, in separate incidents on the South and Northwest sides. The city’s Law Department put the settlement at $90,000. As part of the agreement the city conceded that a ShotSpotter alert alone does not justify stopping or patting down a person who happens to be near the alert location. The city had stopped using the system in September 2024 and, at the time of the settlement, was considering bringing gunshot detection back.

In June 2025, Morristown, Tennessee, police stopped a grandfather and grandmother as they drove to a doctor’s appointment with their 3-year-old granddaughter. The grandmother’s Ford Expedition carried a vanity plate reading ‘LOVEY’; a Ford F-150 reported stolen in Claiborne County carried a plate reading ‘L0VEY’ with a zero. A license plate reader treated the two as a match. Officers drew guns on the grandfather as he got out; the grandmother said a laser sight rested on her chest while she told officers there was a baby in the car. Officers found the discrepancy and released them. The Institute for Justice lists the case as a Flock camera ‘O’ for ‘0’ misread among at least 27 ALPR-error stops since 2018. No lawsuit or payment is reported.

Detroit agreed to pay $35,000 to settle a federal lawsuit after police used license plate reader data to wrongly detain Isoke Robinson and her son in September 2023. Police impounded Robinson’s 2013 Dodge Charger for over three weeks. An internal affairs investigation found officers ‘improperly identified’ the vehicle and that it was not released timely; some officers were referred for possible discipline. The city admitted no wrongdoing. The suit alleged police worked backward from reader data, using the car’s description rather than a license plate number. The ACLU said the case highlights concerns about the use of the city’s 100-plus camera system.

On April 11, 2024, Toledo police officer Adrian Wilson stopped Brandon Upchurch after a Flock license plate reader misread the plate JLL 7637 on his red Dodge pickup as JLL 7362, a tan Chevrolet Malibu reported stolen. Wilson read the actual plate to dispatch, confirming the mismatch, but continued the stop. Backup officers arrived, and a police dog bit Upchurch. He was charged with obstructing and resisting arrest; charges were later dismissed. An internal investigation cleared the officers of wrongdoing regarding the dog attack, but Wilson received a verbal reprimand for failing to verify the plate. Upchurch sued for at least $75,000; a settlement has been agreed but awaits Toledo City Council approval.

In April 2024, a Flock camera in Toledo misread the number “7” on Brandon Upchurch’s license plate as “2”, matching it to a stolen vehicle. Police stopped Upchurch and deployed a dog, which mauled him. He was arrested and later released. Charges of obstructing official business and resisting arrest were dismissed. Upchurch filed a civil lawsuit and settled for $35,000 with no admission of wrongdoing.

On February 5, 2024, the family’s attorney announced that the City of Aurora, Colorado, had agreed to a $1.9 million settlement with Brittney Gilliam, who was pulled over in 2020 with four children in the car and ordered out at gunpoint. Officers had believed the car was stolen. The plate number matched a stolen motorcycle, but the motorcycle was registered in Montana and the car carried Colorado plates. Reports say an automated license plate reader flagged the plate and officers did not check the state before conducting a felony stop. Children were handcuffed on the pavement. Video of the stop circulated widely. The city paid the settlement from public funds. Reports do not name the ALPR vendor.

In February 2024, Steven Melvin, an Iraq War veteran, was stopped at gunpoint in Lake Wylie, South Carolina, after a Flock Safety license plate reader misread one letter on his plate, flagging his car as stolen. Deputy Kyle Brogden held him at gunpoint for over five minutes while verifying the error. Internal records show the cameras had correctly read the same plate 13 times before. Melvin was released, no charges filed. On June 29, 2026, he filed suit in state court; the case was removed to federal court. The sheriff’s office seeks dismissal, arguing ‘a mistake of fact leading to a seizure under the Fourth Amendment does not amount to a Constitutional violation.’ The case is pending in federal court.

Seattle’s Office of Inspector General published a surveillance technology usage review covering ALPR deployments in 2021 and 2022. The report found 976 misreads in 2021 and 948 in 2022, approximately one misread for every five unverified hits. It documented two erroneous vehicle stops caused by outdated or misleading hotlist information. In one, a stolen license plate had been swapped onto a similarly described vehicle, leading to a firearms-drawn stop of an innocent driver. In another, officers stopped a vehicle reported stolen but recovered earlier; the recovery had not been recorded. The OIG recommended that SPD develop a deployment strategy that accounts for disproportionality in data collection.

In July 2023, the city of Charlotte paid $10,000 to settle a wrongful arrest claim from a woman. Police used an automated license plate reader from NDI Technologies in June 2021 to link her car to a suspect with a similar name, leading to a brief detention. The city admitted no wrongdoing.

On July 23, 2022, Española, New Mexico, police stopped a car driven by Jaclynn Gonzales, then 21, with her 12-year-old sister as a passenger, after a Flock Safety camera flagged the plate as belonging to a vehicle stolen from Rio Rancho. The plate ended in a 2, which the camera read as a 7; the two plates differed by one character. A sergeant ordered Gonzales out at gunpoint before dispatch had confirmed the plate. An officer asked the child whether she had weapons, handcuffed her and placed her in a patrol vehicle. Officers then checked the plate and VIN and found the mismatch. Both sisters sued the city in state district court on January 3, 2024. The Rio Grande Sun reported the city settled the case in June 2025, paying $20,000 to each sister, part of eight settlements totaling more than $1.3 million.

In April 2021, Jason Burkleo was driving to his security job in Atherton, California, when the town’s automated license plate reader misread his dirt-obscured plate, reading the letters ‘H’ as ‘M’, and matched it to a reported stolen vehicle. Police treated the alert as a high-risk felony stop, ordered him at gunpoint to throw his keys out the window, get out and lie on his stomach, and handcuffed him. Burkleo sued the police department and the officers, alleging unreasonable seizure and excessive force. The case settled for $45,000. EFF lists the case among documented ALPR misreads that ended with guns drawn on innocent drivers.

On November 25, 2018, Contra Costa County sheriff’s deputies stopped Brian Hofer, chair of Oakland’s Privacy Advisory Commission, and his brother at gunpoint after an automated license plate reader alerted that their rental car was stolen. The Getaround Kia had been stolen from San Jose in October and recovered, but the recovery had not been cleared from the hot list. Deputies released the pair after sorting out the record; no one was booked. Hofer filed a federal civil rights suit against the deputies, alleging warrantless search and excessive force. KTVU reported the sheriff’s office paid him $49,500 in an August settlement. EFF later cited the case as an example of an alert generated by outdated data rather than a camera misread.

On March 30, 2009, San Francisco police pulled over Denise Green, a 47-year-old black woman, after the department’s automated license plate reader misread her plate and matched it to a stolen vehicle. Between four and six officers pointed guns at her and ordered her out of the car. After she was searched and her car searched, the police let her go. The ACLU later reported the reader had misread a ‘3’ as a ‘7’. A district court found against her; the Ninth Circuit reinstated the case in May 2014. In 2015 the Board of Supervisors passed Ordinance 181-15 authorizing a $495,000 settlement of her lawsuit.