Cops Post AI Slop Image Of "Drug Bust," Then Lie and Say It's Real When They're Called Out

AI slop has come for everything — including those cringey drug bust spreads that clueless cops love to post.

As Portland, Maine's WMTW reports, police in the suburban city of Westbrook have apologized after not only posting an obviously AI-generated photo of a purported narcotics seizure, but also lying to the public about it.

Over the weekend, the Westbrook Maine Police Department shared on Facebook the sloppy photo that featured, among other glaring AI tells, indecipherable text appearing on a drug scale, medication packet, and weed vape cartridge packages.

Soon after the post went up, AI-literate Mainers called it for what it was, prompting the cops to double down and defend the obviously AI image as legit.

"We want to set the record straight — this is NOT an AI-generated photo," the town's PD claimed in a follow-up to the initial post, both of which have since been deleted, per WMTW. "What you see is what was seized by officers during the course of the drug arrests. Is the packaging weird and look like gibberish or a different language? Yes. But that is legitimately what was located and seized by officers."

"The packaging is most likely foreign," the cops continued, "and it is possible that whoever made the packaging used AI to make a clearly knock-off package."

Within a few days, however, both the initial and followup post had been deleted, and Westbrook PD issued an apology and explanation.

In a post featuring the AI-generated photo next to the original for comparison, the cops noted that the arresting officer in the drug bust — who was not named — used an AI tool to "add in our department patch."

"Unbeknownst to anyone, when the app added the patch, it altered the packaging and some of the other attributes on the photograph," the apology post reads. "None of us caught it or realized it."

As one local resident told WGME, another Portland-area news broadcaster, it's pretty shocking that the obviously altered photo was even tampered with in the first place, nevermind that it made it onto the department's Facebook page .

"It makes me wonder how much people understand about technology," the concerned citizen said, "and how easy it is to fool people."

That last part about ease of deception is, despite the hilarity of watching cops get pie on their faces, particularly salient.

In this instance, the alteration was done by someone who clearly didn't know what they were doing, resulting not only in obvious AI tells — but also, ironically, some of the paraphernalia being removed from the image.

Regardless of that AI-ignorant cop being in the wrong, their department doubled down in support — suggesting that when and if law enforcement gets better at digital evidence tampering, they will likely do the same.

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