A Tennessee grandmother, Angela Lipps, has filed a lawsuit against officials in a North Dakota city and its police department. She claims she was wrongly detained for nearly six months due to flawed facial recognition technology used in a bank theft investigation.
Lipps, 50, was arrested at gunpoint while caring for children at a neighbor’s home in 2025. The complaint, filed on September 15, 2026, states authorities used a mistaken AI facial recognition match to extradite her from Tennessee to North Dakota, despite having no ties to the crime or the state.
Technology experts say this is one of over a dozen known cases involving alleged misuse of facial recognition by police. Lipps described her experience in a GoFundMe post, saying, “I sat in a county jail in Tennessee for 108 days.” She was labeled a fugitive, held without bail, and received no interviews.
“Fraud expert warns AI is helping criminals outpace the government: ‘Don’t have the right tools,'” the lawsuit asserts.
Lipps remained jailed for 108 days before extradition to North Dakota, where she was eventually exonerated. The theft case involved a woman using fake IDs for bank fraud in Fargo and West Fargo, North Dakota. The police reportedly relied on a fraudulent ID photo for facial recognition searches using Clearview AI, marking it as a positive identification without independent corroboration.
Police in West Fargo refused to press charges, noting the AI match was unverified. A police captain described facial recognition as a last-resort tool in investigations.
“Flock Safety cameras need constitutional guardrails before further deployment,” Tennessee’s mayor argues.
According to the lawsuit, Detective Lucas Heck overlooked Lipps’ financial and travel records, indicating her presence in Tennessee during the crimes. He also failed to conduct photo lineups, disregarding physical differences between Lipps and the suspect.
The complaint states Heck ignored evidence disproving Lipps’ involvement in the thefts. On July 14, 2025, U.S. Marshals arrested Lipps on a nationwide warrant, holding her on a $100,000 bond for eight felony charges, the most severe carrying up to 10 years imprisonment.
All charges were dismissed on December 24, 2025, after Lipps provided proof of her location during the offenses. Upon release, she discovered the loss of her home, car, and personal belongings.
“Flock Safety CEO calls for national ‘compromise’ amid camera sabotage and public revolt,” hints at an ongoing discourse.
In March 2026, Fargo officials admitted to investigative mistakes involving facial recognition. Mayor Tim Mahoney acknowledged the errors publicly, stating immediate action was taken once discovered.
Clare Garvie, deputy director of Technology Law & Policy, highlights growing incidents of AI mishandling as police integrate new tools into investigations. “Sixteen misidentifications have led to wrongful arrests,” she told Fox News Digital, urging updates in investigation workflows.
Nate Freed-Wessler from the American Civil Liberties Union noted an increase in wrongful arrests due to artificial intelligence. “We’ve seen these issues rising for five to six years, and their frequency seems to grow,” he said. Reports have surfaced of police avoiding documentation of facial recognition use.