Detroit Attorneys representing a Farmington Hills man filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday seeking undisclosed damages from the city, its police chief and a Detroit police detective for the grave harm caused by the misuse of, and reliance upon, facial recognition technology.
The 75-page suit was filed on behalf of Robert Williams in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan by the University of Michigan Law School’s Civil Rights Litigation Initiative, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Michigan.
An ACLU press release Tuesday claimed: Mr. Williams’ experience was the first case of wrongful arrest due to facial recognition technology to come to light in the United States.
Detroit Friends, relatives and former co-workers of slain Detroit Police Sgt. Elaine Williams minced no words Friday in castigating the judge who granted bond to her alleged killer. There s one word for people who hide. It s called cowardly, Detroit police chief James Craig said during a vigil for Williams, a mother of two and a 14-year Detroit police veteran who was killed June 2, 2019, in the Garden City home she shared with her domestic partner, Eddie Ray-Jr. Johnson.
Johnson was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. Wayne County Circuit Judge Lawrence Talon on April 1 ordered the defendant released on a tether because of an undisclosed medical condition, reducing the defendant’s bond from remand status to a $100,000/10% bond.
Jacobs says every meeting offers a wealth of information.
“[It’s] always enlightening to hear what the public are saying about different issues, and also all the good projects that are happening.” Vassilis Jacobs, Detroit Documenter
“So every meeting has something new and [I’m] learning a lot of new information,” he says.
He says Documenters is a way to get involved in the community.
“I think it’s a great way to learn about your government, and also get paid to do it, and become part of the public record to not only do you learn yourself, but you contribute to the public record, and the documentation of the boards commissions and authorities that we have in Detroit,” he says.
February 22, 2021 By Jon King / jking@whmi.com
A Washtenaw County judge is set to rule today on whether citations issued last summer during a racial injustice protest in Chelsea should be dismissed.
That follows a protest Friday in front of the Chelsea Police Department after Chief Edward Toth said his department will not dismiss the civil charges against 29 people issued $180 tickets for impeding traffic. All of those who were ticketed last July, including seven minors, were members of the youth-led Anti-Racist Chelsea Youth (ARCY) group. They alleged that Chelsea Police targeted them exclusively, including taking surveillance pictures. Earlier last week, Chelsea City Council voted unanimously to recommend that Chief Toth dismiss the charges.