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NOPE
Medium reported severity Lawsuit Filed

Greenville, South Carolina: two sisters say police drew guns and handcuffed them in February 2022 after a license plate camera flagged their rental car, which was still listed as stolen after being returned; they sued Greenville police

The Post and Courier reported in March 2024 that two Greenville sisters had sued over a stop by Greenville Police on 15 February 2022. According to the lawsuit, they drove past a license plate camera in a car they had rented a day earlier, which was listed as stolen. Three officers stopped them, drew their guns, handcuffed both and placed them in the back of a police car. The driver showed an officer the rental agreement. According to the lawsuit, a rental company employee told an officer that the car had been reported stolen on 27 January and that the company had called police the next day to say it had been returned. Police released the sisters and asked dispatch to remove the car from the stolen vehicle database, the suit says. The lawsuit says either police failed to remove the entry or the company did not call. A police sergeant told the newspaper that dispatchers maintain the database and that it updates with the license plate cameras every six hours.

AI system
Unidentified license plate reader
Unknown
Occurred
15 Feb 2022
Reported
4 March 2024
Event location
United States
What the AI did
Made a claim about the person
Reported harm
Loss of Liberty
Whose AI use
An institution’s AI use
Setting
Justice
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source
4 claims: 4 reported. 4 open questions
People reported harmed
2 people

AI system as recorded: License plate camera used by the Greenville Police Department and linked to its stolen vehicle database (The Post and Courier, from the lawsuit and a police sergeant); vendor not named

What Happened

The Post and Courier Greenville reported on 4 March 2024 on a lawsuit by two sisters. The suit says they were stopped by Greenville Police on 15 February 2022 in a car rented a day earlier from a Greenville-based rental company, after driving past a license plate camera. Three officers drew their guns, handcuffed the sisters and placed them in the back of a police car. The driver explained that the car was a rental and shared the rental agreement with one of the officers. An officer then called the rental company, and an employee confirmed the car had been reported stolen on 27 January and said the company had called police the next day to report that it had been returned. Police released the sisters and contacted dispatch to remove the car from the stolen vehicle database. The lawsuit claims that either police failed to remove the car from the database after the call or the rental company forgot to call. A Greenville Police sergeant told the newspaper that trained dispatchers, not individual officers, add and remove items in the stolen vehicle database and that it updates with the license plate cameras every six hours. The sisters' attorney argues that a stop for an unreturned rental car was not high risk. The article says the department began using license plate cameras in 2020. The rental company could not be reached by the newspaper.

Reported harm

According to their lawsuit as reported by The Post and Courier, the two sisters were stopped by three officers with guns drawn, handcuffed and placed in the back of a police car before being released.

Outcome

Unknown

The sisters were released at the scene and police asked dispatch to remove the car from the stolen vehicle database, according to the lawsuit. The sisters sued Greenville police; their attorney argues there was no justification for drawing guns. The outcome of the lawsuit is not known from the body read.

What remains unknown

  • The vendor of the license plate camera and what its alert showed.
  • Whether the stolen-vehicle entry was left in place by police or never withdrawn by the rental company.
  • How long the sisters were held.
  • The outcome of the lawsuit.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. The Post and Courier reports, from the lawsuit, that the sisters were stopped after driving past a license plate camera in a rental car listed as stolen, and a Greenville Police sergeant told the newspaper that the stolen vehicle database updates with the license plate cameras every six hours. The article does not name the camera vendor or describe its technology. The article's summary line calls the device a license plate reader. It reports no misreading of the plate: the rental company employee confirmed that the car had been reported stolen on 27 January, and the lawsuit disputes why the entry was still in the database.

4 claims: 4 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported According to the sisters' lawsuit, Greenville Police stopped them on 15 February 2022 in a car they had rented a day earlier, after they drove past a license plate camera while the car was listed as stolen. Three officers drew their guns, handcuffed both sisters and placed them in the back of a police car.

Causal attribution. Allegations in the lawsuit as reported by The Post and Courier.

  • postandcourier.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'they were handcuffed by police after they drove past a license plate camera in a rental car that was reported stolen'; 'were stopped by Greenville Police on Feb. 15, 2022, in a car they rented from'; 'drawing their guns and handcuffing the sisters before placing them in the back of a police car, the suit says'
Reported According to the lawsuit, a rental company employee told an officer by phone that the car had been reported stolen on 27 January and that the company had called police the next day to say it had been returned.

Causal attribution. Allegation in the lawsuit; the rental company could not be reached by the newspaper.

  • postandcourier.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'confirmed it was reported stolen on Jan. 27, but that they called police the next day to let them know the car was returned, according to the lawsuit'
Reported Police released the sisters and contacted dispatch to remove the car from the stolen vehicle database, the lawsuit says. It claims that either police failed to remove the car after being called or the rental company did not call.

Causal attribution. Allegations in the lawsuit as reported.

  • postandcourier.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'Police released the sisters from custody and made sure to contact dispatch to remove the car from the stolen vehicle database, the suit says.'; 'The lawsuit claims either the police failed to remove the car from the database after being called or that the rental car company forgot to call.'
Reported A Greenville Police sergeant said trained dispatchers add and remove entries in the stolen vehicle database and that the database updates with the license plate cameras every six hours.

Causal attribution. The sergeant's comments to The Post and Courier.

  • postandcourier.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'Trained dispatchers, not individual officers, specifically add and remove items from the stolen vehicle database'; 'The database updates with the license plate cameras every six hours'

Sources

1 source inspected. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Read in English on 2026-10-05 from an Internet Archive capture of 5 March 2024 (The Post and Courier Greenville, 4 March 2024). Rests on the sisters' lawsuit and a Greenville Police sergeant's comments to the newspaper; the complaint was not read. Applies to s1.

Event countries: United States. Affected-person countries: United States. Court countries: United States.

Greenville Police stopped two Greenville sisters in a car rented from a Greenville-based company, and the sisters sued over the stop (The Post and Courier).

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-05: Published under the 2026-09-15 charter as an institutional-use case consistent with the held stale-hotlist rows. The Post and Courier reports a lawsuit in which two sisters say officers drew guns, handcuffed them and put them in a police car after a license plate camera flagged their rental car on a stolen-vehicle entry that should have been cleared. The account rests on the lawsuit, so every claim is reported and causation is alleged. The sisters are named in the article and are not named here. The vendor is unidentified.

People described

Two sisters from Greenville, South Carolina, who had rented the car a day earlier (named in the article as plaintiffs; not named here)

People reported harmed in this case

2 people

0 AI participants · 2 other people harmed

Two people, the sisters in the rental car, both handcuffed and placed in a police car according to the lawsuit (The Post and Courier). Exact 2.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#alpr#license-plate-reader#stale-hotlist#rental-car#wrongful-stop#guns-drawn#south-carolina#greenville#justice#lawsuit

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Greenville, South Carolina: two sisters say police drew guns and handcuffed them in February 2022 after a license plate camera flagged their rental car, which was still listed as stolen after being returned; they sued Greenville police. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2022-greenville-south-carolina-license-plate-reader-stale-stolen-entry-rental-car-sisters-handcuffed-lawsuit

BibTeX

@misc{2022_greenville_south_carolina_license_plate_reader_stale_stolen_entry_rental_car_sisters_handcuffed_lawsuit,
  title = {Greenville, South Carolina: two sisters say police drew guns and handcuffed them in February 2022 after a license plate camera flagged their rental car, which was still listed as stolen after being returned; they sued Greenville police},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2022-greenville-south-carolina-license-plate-reader-stale-stolen-entry-rental-car-sisters-handcuffed-lawsuit}
}

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