Police in Florida are eating crow after it emerged that they arrested a random man in August of 2024, based on a lead generated by facial recognition software, and charged him with a horrifying crime of which he was entirely innocent.

Robert Dillon of Lee County, Florida was shocked when officers hauled him out of his home last year, charging that he attempted to lure a 12-year-old child in another part of the state back in November of 2023.

According to a police report viewed by Action News Jax, a local media outlet, Dillion was pegged for the crime after AI software used by the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office and Jacksonville Beach PD connected him to surveillance footage of the actual suspect, calling him a "93 percent match."

Dillon's photo was then shown to two witnesses along with similar-looking individuals, who both identified the 51-year-old man as the suspect, leading to his arrest nine months after the alleged crime took place.

In body-cam video shared by ANJax, both Dillon and his wife were audibly disturbed by the accusation.

"This is f**king nuts. God this is nuts," said Dillon as local police stuffed him in the back of a squad car. "I haven't been out of Fort Meyers in two years," the man told police, referring to the seat of Lee County. Jacksonville Beach, for reference, is a five-hour drive North, on the opposite side of the peninsula.

The Florida man is one of a growing number of wrongful arrests attributed to AI, a concerning trend as more and more police departments outsource their detective work to unproven and often sloppy algorithmic software.

In the US, local police are growing increasingly reliant on AI tech that cross references datasets such as drivers registration info, surveillance camera footage, and social media. These systems are notoriously unreliable and sycophantic, scraping vast chunks of the internet to confirm users' queries.

Paired with life-altering legal accusations, that's a recipe for a dystopian technological horror story.

Even if this tech were to identify the right suspect — a big if, given its numerous failures so far — the US Constitution requires probable cause to make an arrest that legal experts say AI can't provide.

"Police are not allowed under the Constitution to arrest somebody without probable cause," Nate Freed-Wessler, deputy director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project told ANJax. "And this technology expressly cannot provide probable cause, it is so glitchy, it's so unreliable. At best, it has to be viewed as an extremely unreliability lead because it often, often gets it wrong."

And while the use of the notoriously hallucinogenic software leads to wrongful arrests, it also serves to allow agencies to skirt their responsibility to follow due process. Throughout Robert Dillon's infuriating saga, the two police departments involved continuously passed the buck onto each other.

"If you came to me with a facial recognition hit and that was your probable cause, I would probably kick you out of my office because that’s not how it works," Jacksonville Sheriff TK Waters told ANJax. Though Waters' department apparently lent Jacksonville Beach PD the "aid" of its AI lab to identify Dillon, Waters and his department can skirt responsibility so long as they weren't the arresting agency.

The arresting officers in Lee County did the same: "I don't know what to tell you, G. This isn't our investigation, it's all Jacksonville," the officer told Dillon, referring to Jacksonville Sheriff and Jacksonville Beach PD.

When it became obvious that they had the wrong guy — whether due to a proven alibi or lack of probable cause isn't yet known — both Jacksonville agencies passed the buck onto the State of Florida.

"We will not be commenting on this matter beyond stating that all warrant requests are submitted to the State Attorney's Office," the Jacksonville Beach Police Department said in a statement. "It is solely their decision whether or not to move forward with issuing a warrant."

Per ANJax, Dillon is now pursuing legal damages for his wrongful arrest. If similar lawsuits suits are any indication, this incident might end up costing Jacksonville taxpayers bigtime.

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