St. Louis County, Missouri: Christopher Gatlin was arrested in August 2021 after officers ran a grainy bus surveillance photo through a regional facial-recognition system and was held roughly 17 months (Post-Dispatch and Bloomberg Law: about two years) on a first-degree assault charge dismissed in March 2024; his federal civil-rights suit (filed January 2025) was amended in August 2026 to add Amazon Web Services, whose Rekognition technology the complaint says underpinned the match

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (25 September 2026) reports that a MetroLink security guard was beaten by two men at the St. Charles Rock Road MetroLink station in north St. Louis County in December 2020 and left with a brain injury; he told investigators he could not describe the attackers. Station and bus cameras caught two people walking by; a joint team of St. Louis County and city detectives who investigate MetroLink crimes canvassed homeless shelters, and in late December 2020 an officer wrote that the case should be considered inactive. In August 2021 two officers, County Officer Matthew Shute and City Officer Welle, revisited the case and uploaded a 'grainy surveillance photo' from the bus into the St. Louis Mugshot Recognition Technology system (SMRT), which St. Louis County had created in 2018 with a $750 Amazon Rekognition credit and loaded with more than 500,000 mug shots, the suit says; the photo was low-resolution, the suspect's eyes were not visible and his face was obscured by clothing and a mask. The program returned a list of names including Gatlin. Body-camera video from 9 August 2021 shows officers presenting the guard with photographs of six men; he first chose a man of considerably lighter complexion, said he could not remember between two, and after prompting chose Gatlin. Gatlin, who had no criminal history and says he was not on the platform, was arrested four days later (Biometric Update, via Hoodline, gives 14 August 2021), charged with first-degree assault and held in jail for almost two years (Hoodline citing Biometric Update: roughly 17 months while the case was pending; Bloomberg Law: two years). His public defender's motion to suppress the identification as unconstitutionally suggestive was granted (Hoodline citing Biometric Update: St. Louis County Judge Brian May, February 2024), and on 14 March 2024 prosecutors dismissed the charges. Gatlin sued in the Eastern District of Missouri on 13 January 2025 (docket 4:25-cv-00043) against St. Louis County, the City of St. Louis and three officers; the 29 January 2025 amended complaint also named Surescan Technology, LLC, dismissed on 8 May 2025. On 15 October 2025 the court denied the City's motion to dismiss and granted Welle's motion only as to Count V. On 13 August 2026 the court granted leave for a second amended complaint adding Amazon Web Services; Bloomberg Law and the Post-Dispatch report that it alleges the arrest and indictment were the product of shoddy police work, poor training, police misconduct and a defective facial-recognition program, that Amazon courted law enforcement without guidelines or training, that its June 2020 moratorium on police use of Rekognition's face comparison was not directly notified to departments while invoices to St. Louis County continued, and that the suit lists 14 counts including reckless investigation, malicious prosecution, civil conspiracy, strict product liability, negligent design, failure to warn and false arrest. Amazon told the Post-Dispatch its terms of service prohibit the use of its facial recognition technology in criminal investigations and that it would fully investigate any information that emerges in the litigation; a St. Louis police spokesman said city officers still use the program to compare probe images to an arrest-photo database. The docket shows AWS was served on 18 August 2026, the county, its officers, the city and Welle answered on 27 August 2026, AWS's response deadline was extended to 21 September with a further extension to 28 September requested on 17 September, a mediation on 13 July 2026 ended without settlement, and a jury trial is set for 1 November 2027. The ACLU's April 2026 list of people wrongfully arrested after police reliance on facial recognition names 'Christopher Gatlin, arrested by police in St. Louis, Missouri (August 2021)'. Gatlin told the Post-Dispatch he has suffered from mental health issues since his release and that he is still trying to get the vision of being locked up out of his head.

Gatlin was jailed for roughly 17 months to almost two years on a first-degree assault charge dismissed in March 2024 after the identification evidence was suppressed; his suit attributes the arrest to reliance on a facial-recognition match from an unusable photograph together with a suggestive lineup (the complaint's allegations as reported by the Post-Dispatch, Bloomberg Law and Hoodline; the ACLU lists the case as a wrongful arrest). He told the Post-Dispatch he has suffered from mental health issues since his release.

Criminal case: the photo identification was suppressed as unconstitutionally suggestive (Post-Dispatch; Hoodline citing Biometric Update names St. Louis County Judge Brian May and February 2024) and prosecutors dismissed the first-degree assault charge on 14 March 2024 (Post-Dispatch). Civil case Gatlin v. Welle, No. 4:25-cv-00043 (E.D. Mo., Magistrate Judge Abbie Crites-Leoni; cause 28:1983 civil rights): complaint 13 January 2025; first amended complaint 29 January 2025 (also naming Surescan Technology, LLC, dismissed 8 May 2025); memorandum and order of 15 October 2025 denying the City of St. Louis's motion to dismiss Count 9 and granting Welle's motion only as to Count V; second amended complaint filed 13 August 2026 adding Amazon Web Services; AWS served 18 August 2026; answers by St. Louis County, its officers, the city and Welle on 27 August 2026; AWS's answer deadline extended to 21 September 2026 and a further extension to 28 September sought on 17 September (no ruling on the docket when read; the Post-Dispatch reports Amazon has until 28 September); mediation on 13 July 2026 did not settle; pretrial conference 27 October 2027 and jury trial set for 1 November 2027 (CourtListener docket, read 26 September 2026).