{"meta":{"exportedAt":"2026-11-14T10:47:56.024Z","formatVersion":2,"selection":{"q":"wrongful-stop","system":"","harm":"","context":"","country":"","role":"","relation":"contextual","evidence":"","year":"2026","response":"","severity":"","verification":"","view":"incidents","sort":"added"},"totalIncidents":2,"coverage":{"cases":2,"countries":1,"languages":1,"unknownLocation":0,"locationPending":0,"unknownLanguage":0,"unknownDate":0,"lawsuits":0,"regulatory":0,"minors":0,"coreRelations":0,"contextualRelations":2,"mixedRelations":0,"unknownRelations":0,"relationPending":0,"relationUnknown":0},"countingNote":"Distinct public cases in this selection. People counts apply within individual cases only; cross-case person overlap has not been resolved. No population incidence estimate.","affectedCountNote":"Interpret person counts with affectedCountStatus and the reported effects. Unquantified zeros are placeholders, not a measured zero.","source":"AI incidents","publisher":"NOPE","url":"https://nope.net/incidents","license":"CC BY 4.0"},"incidents":[{"id":"2026-plymouth-minnesota-flock-alpr-partial-plate-stolen-alert-journalist-couple-boxed-in-detained","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'On an otherwise normal Sunday afternoon in late June'; 'four cop cars came flying out of nowhere and boxed us in'; 'He patted me down'; 'The plates on this car are stolen'; 'Eventually, after a tense hour, I did.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'after about an hour he too was let go'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"On a Sunday afternoon in late June, four police cars boxed in a loaned Range Rover in a Kohl's parking lot in Plymouth, Minnesota. Officers ordered the journalist driving it and the journalist's wife out, patted the journalist down, questioned both, said the plates were stolen, and released them after about an hour.","causal_attribution":"First-person account by the journalist; no police record was read."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'they’d actually been tracking me around town for days via Flock cameras'; 'opened the Flock app, and showed me two photos'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Officers told the journalist that they had tracked the vehicle around town for days through Flock cameras, set up the stop after a camera alert that morning, and showed two Flock photographs of the vehicle and its plate on a phone.","causal_attribution":"The journalist's account of what officers said and showed."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'entered into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database missing the middle two digits'; 'It was asked, can you find this? And it did find that.'; 'does not equal probable cause'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"A similar manufacturer plate reported stolen in California had been entered in the national crime database without its two middle digits, and Flock's system alerted on the loaned vehicle's plate as a match. Flock's chief communications officer said the system read what it was asked to find and that an alert does not equal probable cause.","causal_attribution":"The journalist's reconstruction from the officers, the vehicle's manufacturer and Flock; Flock attributes the outcome to incomplete data entry and missing human verification."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'he acknowledged his officers didn’t get it right'; 'to open a conversation about the use of Flock cameras within the city'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The Plymouth police chief acknowledged to the journalist that the officers did not get it right, and the city council opened a discussion of the city's use of Flock cameras.","causal_attribution":"The journalist's paraphrase of the chief's interview and of the council's response."},{"id":"c5","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'was pulled over by two officers in Scotts Bluff, Nebraska while driving his 14-year-old kid'; 'after about an hour he too was let go'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"A second automotive journalist driving another loaned vehicle with a plate in the same sequence was pulled over in Scotts Bluff, Nebraska, with a 14-year-old child in the car, and was let go after about an hour.","causal_attribution":"Reported by the first journalist from the second journalist's account; a separate stop, not counted in this case."}],"effects":[{"label":"boxed in by four police cars, ordered out of a loaned press vehicle, patted down and held for about an hour after a license-plate camera alert reported the plate as stolen","claim_id":"c1","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.thedrive.com/news/how-flock-cameras-wrongly-tracked-me-for-days-over-stolen-plates-and-sent-police-after-me","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live in English on 2026-10-05 (The Drive, first-person account by the journalist who was stopped, published 8 July 2026). The account of what officers said is the author's.","independence_group":"thedrive-first-person-plymouth"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.thedrive.com/news/inside-the-flock-dragnet-how-systemic-errors-led-to-police-ambushing-me-for-no-reason","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live in English on 2026-10-05 (The Drive, follow-up by the same author, published 17 July 2026). Carries the author's interviews with Flock Safety's chief communications officer and the Plymouth police chief. Same author and outlet as s1, so one independence group.","independence_group":"thedrive-first-person-plymouth"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["justice","everyday_life"],"unknowns":["The exact date of the stop.","Whether the incomplete stolen-plate entry has been corrected in the national database and in Flock's system.","Whether the Plymouth Police Department changed its verification practice or took any internal action.","Which agency's alert led to the Nebraska stop and whether a Flock camera was involved there."],"geography":{"basis":"The stop took place in a store parking lot in Plymouth, Minnesota, where the journalist says they live (The Drive). The stolen-plate report originated in California.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":["US"],"affected_person_countries":["US"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published under the 2026-09-15 charter as an institutional-use case consistent with the held Flock rows. A journalist gives a concrete first-person account of being boxed in, patted down and held for about an hour with a spouse after a Flock camera alert matched a loaned vehicle's plate to an incomplete stolen-plate entry, and Flock's spokesperson confirms how the match occurred. Both sources are by the same author, so every claim is reported.","reviewed_on":"2026-10-05"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The journalist reports that officers said they had tracked the vehicle for days through Flock cameras and showed the Flock app with the photographs of the plate. Flock Safety's chief communications officer, interviewed for the follow-up, confirmed that the system matched the plate to an incomplete stolen-plate entry and described the matching as machine learning. The Drive describes the cameras as AI-powered.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"Plymouth, Minnesota: police boxed in and detained an automotive journalist and the journalist's wife for about an hour in June 2026 after Flock cameras matched a loaned Range Rover's plate to an incomplete stolen-plate entry","summary":"An automotive journalist for The Drive wrote that on a Sunday afternoon in late June four Plymouth police cars boxed in the Range Rover press vehicle the journalist was testing, in a Kohl's parking lot. Officers ordered the journalist and the journalist's wife out, patted the journalist down, questioned both and said the plates were stolen. According to the account, officers said they had tracked the vehicle for days through Flock license-plate cameras and acted on a camera alert that morning. The couple were released after about an hour, once the manufacturer explained that a similar plate had been reported stolen in California. In a follow-up, Flock's chief communications officer said the stolen plate had been entered without its two middle digits and that the system matched what it was asked to find. The spokesperson said an alert does not equal probable cause. The police chief acknowledged that officers did not get it right. A second journalist with a similar plate was later stopped in Nebraska.","incidentDate":"2026-06-01","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"month","exposurePattern":"single_interaction","reportedDate":"2026-07-08","aiSystem":"Flock Safety automated license-plate-reader cameras used by the Plymouth Police Department, described by The Drive as AI-powered and by Flock's spokesperson as machine learning, which matched the vehicle's plate to an incomplete stolen-plate entry and alerted police","aiProduct":"Flock Safety license plate readers","aiCompany":"Flock Safety","severity":"low","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["loss_of_liberty"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"The journalist reports that the couple were boxed in by four police cars, ordered out, questioned and held for about an hour, and that the journalist was patted down (The Drive, first-person account).","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"supported","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":2,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"Two people, the journalist and the journalist's wife, were ordered out and held at the scene (The Drive). The second journalist and a child stopped in Nebraska belong to a separate event and are not counted.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"US-MN","platformType":"other","outcomeType":"media_coverage","outcomeStatus":"ongoing","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.thedrive.com/news/how-flock-cameras-wrongly-tracked-me-for-days-over-stolen-plates-and-sent-police-after-me","primarySourceLabel":"The Drive, 8 July 2026: How Flock Cameras Wrongly Tracked Me for Days Over 'Stolen' Plates and Sent Police After Me","firstPublishedAt":"2026-10-05T03:12:31.048274+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-05T03:12:31.048274+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["flock","alpr","license-plate-reader","partial-plate-match","stale-hotlist","wrongful-stop","minnesota","plymouth","justice","made-claim-about","first-person"]},{"id":"2026-sherwood-arkansas-flock-alpr-misread-plate-one-letter-gunpoint-stop-couple-infant","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'In February, a Flock camera in Sherwood flagged a Black Chevrolet Tahoe as stolen.'; 'drew his weapon, and detained the driver.'; 'She was in the backseat next to a 1-month-old child.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"In February 2026 a Flock camera in Sherwood flagged a black Chevrolet Tahoe as stolen; an officer stopped it in a Kohl's parking lot, drew his weapon and detained the driver, and the passenger, seated in the back next to a one-month-old child, was also detained after a second officer arrived.","causal_attribution":"KATV's account, resting on the incident report."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'the vehicle that was pulled over was not the same car; the Flock camera was off by one letter.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"According to the incident report, the camera matched the car to the plate of the stolen vehicle in its system, but the stopped car was a different vehicle; the camera's read was off by one letter.","causal_attribution":"The incident report as described by KATV attributes the stop to the camera's one-letter misread."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Once the officers realized the mistake, they promptly released both individuals.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Once the officers realized the mistake, they released both people.","causal_attribution":"KATV, citing the incident report."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'After that February incident in Sherwood, the Sherwood Police Department established a transparency portal for Flock safety.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"After the February incident the Sherwood Police Department established a Flock transparency portal stating that Flock data is retained for 30 days and that all system access requires a valid reason.","causal_attribution":"KATV reports the sequence; it does not quote the department on whether the portal was a response to the stop."}],"effects":[{"label":"a driver detained at gunpoint and a passenger seated beside a one-month-old child detained after a Flock camera misread their plate","claim_id":"c1","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://katv.com/news/local/sherwood-stop-sparked-after-flock-camera-misread-plate-by-one-letter-as-stolen-katv-news-share-inform-public-community-safety","kind":"local_tv_news","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live in English on 2026-10-04 (KATV, Christopher Gay, 18 March 2026). Rests on the police incident report and an interview with an Institute for Justice attorney.","independence_group":"katv-sherwood-incident-report"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["justice"],"unknowns":["The exact date of the stop and how long the two people were held.","Whether the two people were handcuffed or described any lasting effect.","Whether the officer checked the plate manually before the stop, and whether any complaint or review followed."],"geography":{"basis":"KATV places the camera and the stop in Sherwood, Arkansas (a Kohl's parking lot). The two people's residence is not stated; affected_person_countries US rests on their stop there. No court proceeding is reported.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":["US"],"affected_person_countries":["US"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published under the 2026-09-15 charter as an institutional-use case consistent with the held Flock misread rows: KATV, citing the police incident report, reports that a Flock camera's one-letter misread flagged a car as stolen and that officers detained the driver at gunpoint and the passenger, who was beside a one-month-old child, before releasing them. Neither person is named here.","reviewed_on":"2026-10-04"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"KATV, citing the incident report, says a Flock camera in Sherwood flagged the car as stolen because the camera's plate read was off by one letter from the stolen vehicle's plate in its system. KATV describes Flock cameras as license plate readers that record passing plates and check them against a list of stolen vehicles. The flag on the couple's car was the automated system's claim about them; drawing a weapon and detaining them were officers' decisions. The source does not describe the camera as AI.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"Sherwood, Arkansas: a driver and passenger with a one-month-old child are detained after an officer draws his weapon because a Flock camera misread their plate by one letter as a stolen vehicle's","summary":"KATV reported on 18 March 2026 that in February a Flock license-plate-reader camera in Sherwood, Arkansas flagged a black Chevrolet Tahoe as stolen. An officer stopped the car in a Kohl's parking lot, drew his weapon and detained the driver; a second officer arrived and the passenger, who was in the back seat next to a one-month-old child, was also detained. According to the incident report, the plate the camera matched belonged to the stolen vehicle in its system and the stopped car was a different vehicle: the camera's read was off by one letter. The officers released both people once they realized the mistake. After the incident the Sherwood Police Department set up a Flock transparency portal.","incidentDate":"2026-02-01","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"month","exposurePattern":"single_interaction","reportedDate":"2026-03-18","aiSystem":"Flock Safety license-plate-reader camera in Sherwood, Arkansas that read the car's plate and flagged it as a stolen vehicle's plate (incident report as reported by KATV)","aiProduct":"Flock Safety license plate readers","aiCompany":"Flock Safety","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["loss_of_liberty"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"According to the incident report as described by KATV, a driver was detained at gunpoint and a passenger seated beside a one-month-old child was also detained after a Flock camera misread their plate by one letter as a stolen vehicle's; both were released when officers realized the mistake.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"supported","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":2,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"Two people detained: the driver and the passenger (KATV, citing the incident report). The one-month-old child is not counted because no harm to the child is reported.","victimAgeRange":"unknown","jurisdiction":"US-AR","platformType":"other","outcomeType":"internal_action","outcomeStatus":"resolved","primarySourceUrl":"https://katv.com/news/local/sherwood-stop-sparked-after-flock-camera-misread-plate-by-one-letter-as-stolen-katv-news-share-inform-public-community-safety","primarySourceLabel":"KATV, 18 March 2026: Sherwood stop sparked after Flock camera misread plate by one letter as stolen","firstPublishedAt":"2026-10-04T03:47:10.066076+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-04T03:47:10.066076+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["flock","alpr","license-plate-reader","misread","wrongful-stop","gunpoint","arkansas","sherwood","made-claim-about"]}]}