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Low reported severity Lawsuit Dismissed

Jackson Township, Ohio: police stopped and briefly detained a driver in March 2023 after a Flock license-plate camera matched his plate to a missing-juvenile hotlist entry left in place after the juvenile was found; he settled with the township, and a federal court dismissed his suit against Flock in April 2024

According to a federal court opinion of 15 April 2024, Cleveland police entered a driver's license plate and vehicle description on a hotlist during a February 2023 missing-juvenile investigation. The juvenile was found on 23 February 2023 and the investigation ended, but two weeks later a Flock Safety license-plate camera captured the driver's plate, matched it to the hotlist and alerted Jackson Township police, who stopped his car. The officers contacted Cleveland police, learned the juvenile had been found, and let him go; the police report shows him cleared by 5:18 a.m. He sued the township and four officers, settling in November 2023, and then sued Flock, alleging among other things defamation, product defects and emotional distress. Judge Benita Y. Pearson of the Northern District of Ohio dismissed the suit against Flock, finding that Flock did not detain him, that its system only matched plates against information entered by police, and that its camera did not cause the injury he complained of.

AI system
Flock Safety license plate readers
Flock Safety
Occurred
Mar 2023
Reported
15 April 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 supported · Causal attribution disputed · 1 source
3 claims: 1 documented, 2 reported. 3 open questions
People reported harmed
1 person

AI system as recorded: Flock Safety license-plate-recognition camera system that captured the driver's plate, matched it against a police hotlist and sent an alert to Jackson Township police (court opinion)

What Happened

The Memorandum of Opinion and Order (Pearson, J., 15 April 2024) sets out the facts as drawn from the pleadings and the earlier township case. Flock's system matches license and vehicle information it collects against a hotlist and alerts local police when a match is in the area; Flock does not generate the hotlist information. On 13 February 2023 Cleveland police opened a missing-juvenile investigation that resulted in the driver's plate number and vehicle description being entered on the hotlist. The juvenile was located at a hospital on 23 February 2023 and the investigation was terminated. Two weeks later Flock's camera captured the driver's plate and matched it to the hotlist entry; the notification prompted Jackson Township police to stop his vehicle. The officers contacted Cleveland police to confirm the alert, learned the juvenile had been found, and allowed him to leave; a Stark County police report attached to the complaint shows he was cleared by 5:18 a.m. He sued the township and four officers and settled on 8 November 2023, then sued Flock five days later on claims including negligence, product liability, defamation, false light, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress and constitutional violations. The court dismissed every claim: Flock did not detain him; the police stop rested on reasonable suspicion; Flock was 'merely the transmitter of observed information'; and its camera did not cause the injury he complained of.

Reported harm

He was stopped and briefly detained by police acting on a stale hotlist match from a Flock camera (court opinion). He claimed emotional distress and reputational and business damages; the court dismissed those claims against Flock.

Outcome

Resolved

His suit against Jackson Township and four officers (N.D. Ohio 5:23-cv-1171) settled on 8 November 2023; terms are not stated in the opinion. His suit against Flock Safety (N.D. Ohio 5:23-cv-02198) was dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6) on 15 April 2024, with the court certifying that an appeal could not be taken in good faith.

What remains unknown

  • The date of the stop beyond 'two weeks' after 23 February 2023, and how long he was held.
  • The terms of the settlement with Jackson Township.
  • Whether he appealed.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: supported. The court opinion states that Flock's license-plate-recognition camera captured the driver's plate, matched it to the hotlist and issued a notification that prompted the stop. The match is the automated system's claim about his car. The hotlist entry was created by Cleveland police and was not removed after the juvenile was found, and the court held that Flock only transmitted observed information and did not cause his injury.

3 claims: 1 documented, 2 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported A Flock license-plate camera matched the driver's plate to a hotlist entry from a Cleveland missing-juvenile investigation that had ended two weeks earlier; the alert prompted Jackson Township police to stop him, and they briefly detained him and let him go after confirming the juvenile had been found.

Causal attribution. Facts recited by the court from the pleadings, the earlier township case and the attached police report, on a motion to dismiss where factual allegations are accepted as true; not findings of fact.

  • govinfo.gov(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'The missing juvenile was located at an area hospital on February 23, 2023'; 'captured Plaintiff’s vehicle’s license plate and matched it to information on the “Hot List.”'; 'The system issued a notification which prompted Jackson Township Police to initiate a traffic stop of Plaintiff’s'; 'The police briefly detained Plaintiff and allowed him to leave without further incident.'
Reported The hotlist entry had been created by Cleveland police, who entered the driver's plate and vehicle description during the investigation.

Causal attribution. Court's recital of the pleadings on a motion to dismiss; not a finding of fact.

  • govinfo.gov(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'Cleveland Police Department entering Plaintiff’s license plate number and vehicle description on'; 'Defendant does not generate the information that triggers the alert'
Documented He settled a suit against the township and its officers on 8 November 2023 and then sued Flock, claiming among other things intentional infliction of emotional distress; the court dismissed the suit against Flock, holding that Flock's camera did not cause the injury he complained of.

Causal attribution. Court record; the court rejected his causation theory against Flock.

  • govinfo.gov(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'The parties settled that case on November 8, 2023.'; 'Count Eight, Plaintiff asserts a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress'; 'Moreover, Defendant’s camera did not cause the injury of which Plaintiff complains.'; 'This action is dismissed pursuant to Federal Civil Procedure Rule 12(b)(6).'

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 live on 2026-10-04 via pdftotext (21-page Memorandum of Opinion and Order, Doc. 38, filed 15 April 2024). Its factual background is drawn from the pleadings and the earlier township case; findings on the claims are the court's. Applies to s1.

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

Jackson Township police made the stop, documented in a Stark County police report, and the hotlist entry came from the Cleveland Police Department; both cases were heard in the US District Court for the Northern District of Ohio (opinion).

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-04: Published under the 2026-09-15 charter as an institutional-use case: a federal court opinion records that a Flock license-plate camera matched a driver's plate to a stale hotlist entry and that police stopped and briefly detained him on the alert. The court dismissed his claims against Flock and held that its camera did not cause his injury; that finding is recorded. He is not named here.

People described

An adult Ohio driver, a self-represented plaintiff (named in the case caption; not named here)

People reported harmed in this case

1 person

0 AI participants · 1 other person harmed

One person, the driver, stopped and briefly detained (court opinion). Exact 1.

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

Tags

#flock#alpr#license-plate-reader#stale-hotlist#wrongful-stop#ohio#jackson-township#justice#lawsuit-dismissed

Cite this case

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

APA

NOPE. (2026). Jackson Township, Ohio: police stopped and briefly detained a driver in March 2023 after a Flock license-plate camera matched his plate to a missing-juvenile hotlist entry left in place after the juvenile was found; he settled with the township, and a federal court dismissed his suit against Flock in April 2024. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2023-jackson-township-ohio-flock-alpr-stale-hotlist-alert-traffic-stop-suit-dismissed

BibTeX

@misc{2023_jackson_township_ohio_flock_alpr_stale_hotlist_alert_traffic_stop_suit_dismissed,
  title = {Jackson Township, Ohio: police stopped and briefly detained a driver in March 2023 after a Flock license-plate camera matched his plate to a missing-juvenile hotlist entry left in place after the juvenile was found; he settled with the township, and a federal court dismissed his suit against Flock in April 2024},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2023-jackson-township-ohio-flock-alpr-stale-hotlist-alert-traffic-stop-suit-dismissed}
}

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After a crash on Interstate 4 near DeBary, Florida, on 4 October 2025 killed three people, a Flock Safety automated license-plate reader recorded Lindsey Isaacs's black Dodge Durango about three miles west of the scene two minutes before the collision. Although a 911 caller had described a maroon Durango with a partial plate that did not match, and a Florida Highway Patrol inspection found no crash damage on her SUV, she was arrested on 17 April 2026 on eight felony counts including three of vehicular homicide, spent 13 days in jail (the first several in solitary) and two weeks on bond, and her SUV was impounded for months. On 22 May 2026 the State Attorney's Office declined to prosecute all eight charges and troopers arrested another woman said to have been driving a maroon Durango. Isaacs has filed a federal civil-rights suit against two troopers; Flock Safety says its cameras provide leads, not identifications, and that its data was exculpatory. Florida's attorney general called it 'not a good case'.

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