Man jailed for a month despite Flock showing he was 5 miles from crime scene
Man jailed for a month despite Flock showing he was 5 miles from crime scene
尽管 Flock 系统显示其身处 5 英里外，男子仍被监禁一个月
A San Diego police department is facing a lawsuit after jailing a man for a month based on a Flock camera alert that cops allegedly should have known, based on the timestamp, did not depict the car that they were looking for. 圣地亚哥警察局正面临一场诉讼，原因是一名男子被监禁了一个月。警方依据 Flock 摄像头的警报将其逮捕，但据称警方本应根据时间戳判断出该警报显示的并非他们正在搜寻的车辆。
Last November, Hugo Parra was arrested on felony charges after San Diego police relied on Flock data and a witness statement to wrongly connect him to an attempted carjacking at gunpoint, the Times of San Diego reported. Cops were looking for a red Alfa Romeo car with tinted windows and a man wearing a gray hoodie, and Parra happened to be wearing a white hoodie while riding in a friend’s car that roughly matched the vehicle description. 据《圣地亚哥时报》报道，去年 11 月，雨果·帕拉（Hugo Parra）因重罪指控被捕。圣地亚哥警方当时依赖 Flock 数据和一份证人陈述，错误地将他与一起持枪劫车未遂案联系在一起。警方当时正在寻找一辆带有深色车窗的红色阿尔法·罗密欧汽车，以及一名身穿灰色连帽衫的男子；而帕拉当时恰好身穿白色连帽衫，乘坐在一辆外观与描述大致相符的朋友车内。
Although Flock cameras can capture license plate data, cops did not have even a partial plate to help them verify if the car was involved in a violent crime. But the Flock data cops used to justify the arrest actually showed that Parra was five miles away at the time of the crime, Parra’s attorney, Alex Coolman, told the Times of San Diego. 尽管 Flock 摄像头可以捕捉车牌数据，但警方甚至没有获得部分车牌信息来核实该车是否涉及暴力犯罪。帕拉的律师亚历克斯·库尔曼（Alex Coolman）告诉《圣地亚哥时报》，警方用于证明逮捕合理性的 Flock 数据实际上显示，案发时帕拉身处 5 英里之外。
Rather than arrest him, cops could have used that data, as well as Parra’s cellphone location data, to corroborate Parra’s statement that he was innocent, Coolman said. “This Flock hit was obviously the wrong car, as it could not have been in both places simultaneously,” Coolman said. 库尔曼表示，警方本可以利用这些数据以及帕拉的手机定位数据来证实帕拉的清白，而不是逮捕他。“这次 Flock 警报显然指向了错误的车辆，因为它不可能同时出现在两个地方，”库尔曼说道。
Instead, police set aside the evidence suggesting that Parra’s car was different from the vehicle police were pursuing and called in the witness, who picked out Parra as the suspect in a lineup. However, the witness only identified Parra based on superficial features, including “the jacket and the beard” and “the skin color,” the police report said, according to the Times of San Diego. 然而，警方忽略了表明帕拉的车与警方追捕车辆不符的证据，并传唤了证人，证人在列队辨认中指认帕拉为嫌疑人。据《圣地亚哥时报》援引警方报告称，证人仅凭“夹克、胡须”和“肤色”等表面特征指认了帕拉。
Parra, who was on probation at the time of the arrest, was “in disbelief” after cops decided to jail him. He spent nearly a month in jail, “full of fear and adrenaline because I was being charged with a violent crime,” he told the Times of San Diego. 帕拉在被捕时正处于缓刑期，当警方决定将他监禁时，他感到“难以置信”。他告诉《圣地亚哥时报》，他在监狱里待了近一个月，“充满了恐惧和肾上腺素，因为我被指控犯有暴力罪行。”
Now, he and his friend who owns the car that Flock flagged, Ariel Beltran, are getting ready to sue the city for negligence and civil rights violations. The Times of San Diego reviewed tort claims filed in April, which argued that “San Diego Police misread its own surveillance system and ignored exculpatory evidence in a rush to judgment.” As a penalty, the city owes the men $1.5 million each in damages, their filing alleged. 目前，他和拥有那辆被 Flock 标记车辆的朋友阿里尔·贝尔特兰（Ariel Beltran）正准备以疏忽和侵犯公民权利为由起诉该市。《圣地亚哥时报》查阅了 4 月份提交的侵权索赔文件，其中指出“圣地亚哥警方误读了自己的监控系统，并在仓促定罪中忽略了无罪证据”。他们的诉状要求该市向每人赔偿 150 万美元作为惩罚。
Neither the police department nor the city will comment on the pending litigation, but Coolman told the Times of San Diego that “the city has denied the men’s claims,” so the lawsuit will proceed. 警察局和市政府均未对这起未决诉讼发表评论，但库尔曼告诉《圣地亚哥时报》，“市政府已经拒绝了这些人的索赔要求”，因此诉讼将继续进行。
Making arrests “with less information upfront”
“在前期信息不足的情况下”进行逮捕
Backlash against Flock is mounting, as the camera network has been used to surveil protesters, track abortion-seekers, and detain immigrants, digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation reported. Some local groups are also resisting FBI moves to get “near real time” access to Flock data. 据数字权利组织电子前哨基金会（EFF）报道，针对 Flock 的抵制浪潮日益高涨，因为该摄像头网络已被用于监视抗议者、追踪寻求堕胎者以及拘留移民。一些地方团体也在抵制联邦调查局（FBI）获取 Flock 数据“近乎实时”访问权限的举措。
While the EFF warns the cameras are most often used for low-level investigations like noise complaints or employment background checks, communities across political divides have questioned whether the purported benefits of the cameras are worth sacrificing privacy and risking government surveillance. 尽管 EFF 警告称，这些摄像头最常用于噪音投诉或就业背景调查等低级别调查，但不同政治派别的社区都在质疑，这些摄像头所谓的益处是否值得以牺牲隐私和冒着被政府监控的风险为代价。
But San Diego has continued to embrace Flock. One month after Congress members called for probes into “inevitable” Flock abuse, the San Diego Police Department “looked to bolster its license plate reader program,” the Times of San Diego reported. 但圣地亚哥继续拥抱 Flock。据《圣地亚哥时报》报道，在国会议员呼吁调查 Flock “不可避免”的滥用行为一个月后，圣地亚哥警察局仍“寻求加强其车牌识别系统”。
On top of capturing audio and video, the cameras in the area could have begun collecting data from connected devices if the department signed a contract it was weighing in December. But the cops decided against using the new platform, Axios reported. 据 Axios 报道，除了捕捉音频和视频外，如果警方签署了去年 12 月正在考虑的一份合同，该地区的摄像头本可以开始收集来自联网设备的数据。但警方最终决定不使用该新平台。
Although some police departments may not be ready to pilot Flock’s data-integration platform, they likely have encountered earlier Flock messaging encouraging cops to turn to Flock for purposes beyond its license plate reader functionality. 尽管一些警察局可能还没准备好试点 Flock 的数据集成平台，但他们很可能已经接触过 Flock 早期的宣传信息，鼓励警方将 Flock 用于车牌识别功能之外的用途。
On Monday, the Raleigh News & Observer published a watchdog report warning “No plate? No problem” after obtaining a 2024 product presentation prepared for the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation’s license plate reader pilot program. In that presentation, cops were reminded that “cameras record data including a car’s make, decals, and body type,” as well as bumper stickers and other unique features that comprise a “Vehicle Fingerprint” that cops can supposedly rely on to track specific cars across the camera network. 周一，《罗利新闻与观察家报》发布了一份监督报告，在获得一份为北卡罗来纳州调查局车牌识别试点项目准备的 2024 年产品演示文稿后，警告称“没车牌？没问题”。在该演示中，警方被提醒“摄像头会记录包括汽车品牌、贴纸和车身类型在内的数据”，以及保险杠贴纸和其他构成“车辆指纹”的独特特征，警方据称可以依靠这些特征在摄像头网络中追踪特定车辆。
It’s touted as a way for law enforcement officials to get more information “even when you don’t have full plate information” and to “build stronger cases with less information upfront,” that report showed. 该报告显示，这被吹捧为执法人员的一种方式，即使在“没有完整车牌信息”的情况下也能获取更多信息，并“在前期信息较少的情况下建立更强有力的案件”。
Parra’s case in San Diego is a powerful example of what can go wrong when cops build supposedly strong cases using less information. In his lawsuit, he plans to argue that cops ignored relevant Flock data when pushing forward with his arrest. 帕拉在圣地亚哥的案件是一个强有力的例子，说明了当警方利用较少的信息构建所谓的“强有力案件”时，可能会出现什么问题。在他的诉讼中，他计划辩称警方在推进逮捕时忽略了相关的 Flock 数据。
Most glaringly, the Flock alert that popped up and set cops on Parra’s trail was logged 23 seconds after the cops tried and failed to stop the actual suspect. That log showed that Parra’s friend’s car was five miles away at the time the pursuit began, which Parra’s lawyer said makes it implausible that cops were pursuing that exact vehicle. 最明显的是，导致警方追踪帕拉的 Flock 警报是在警方试图拦截真正嫌疑人失败 23 秒后记录的。该记录显示，在追捕开始时，帕拉朋友的车在 5 英里外，帕拉的律师表示，这使得警方当时正在追捕那辆车的说法变得不可信。
Seemingly, the car just looked too strikingly similar for the detective who saw the Flock alert to treat the hit with appropriate skepticism. The Times of San Diego reviewed Detective Gary Gonzales’ report, which noted that he saw the Flock alert and immediately “recognized the vehicle in the image as the vehicle [we] were pursuing due to the red paint and black tinted windows.” 看起来，这辆车与警方追捕的目标实在太像了，以至于看到 Flock 警报的警探没能对这一匹配结果保持应有的怀疑。《圣地亚哥时报》查阅了加里·冈萨雷斯（Gary Gonzales）警探的报告，报告指出他看到了 Flock 警报，并立即“因为红色的车漆和黑色的深色车窗，认出图像中的车辆就是[我们]正在追捕的车辆”。
Cops also could have checked other Flock cameras in the network to track Beltran’s car and verify Parra’s story. Coolman told the Times of San Diego that “mass surveillance without any sense of skepticism…” 警方本可以检查网络中的其他 Flock 摄像头来追踪贝尔特兰的车并核实帕拉的说法。库尔曼告诉《圣地亚哥时报》，“缺乏任何怀疑精神的大规模监控……”