An automatic license plate reader (ALPR) misread a character on Denise Green's license plate, leading to police conducting a felony stop where she was held at gunpoint and handcuffed for nearly 20 minutes due to officers' failure to verify the plate number.
On March 30, 2009, Denise Green, a 47-year-old African-American woman with no criminal record, was driving her 1992 burgundy Lexus ES 300 with license plate 5SOW350 on Mission Street in San Francisco at approximately 11:15 PM. When she passed a police cruiser equipped with an Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) operated by SFPD Officers Alberto Esparza and Robert Pedersen, the system misread her plate as 5SOW750, identifying it as belonging to a stolen vehicle. The ALPR photograph was blurry and illegible due to dark conditions, preventing Officer Esparza from visually confirming the plate number. Despite SFPD training requiring officers to verify ALPR hits before acting, Esparza radioed the incorrect plate number without indicating he had not verified it. Sergeant Kim heard the radio traffic and followed Green's vehicle, even stopping behind her at a red light, but failed to visually confirm the complete license plate number despite having clear opportunity to do so. Kim then conducted a high-risk felony stop with backup officers, ordering Green out of her vehicle at gunpoint and restraining her in handcuffs for nearly 20 minutes while officers finally verified the correct plate number. The incident resulted in a civil rights lawsuit that was reinstated by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals after initially being dismissed.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
AI systems that fail to perform reliably or effectively under varying conditions, exposing them to errors and failures that can have significant consequences, especially in critical applications or areas that require moral reasoning.
AI system
Due to a decision or action made by an AI system
Unintentional
Due to an unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed