Fargo police chief apologizes for mistakes in AI-aided arrest
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Fargo Police said last week that they used the right safeguards when using facial recognition to investigate and arrest a Tennessee woman accused of bank fraud. Now, the police chief is apologizing.
Police Chief Dave Zibolski said at a press conference Tuesday that the department made mistakes in their investigation and arrest of Angela Lipps, who said she has never been to Fargo. Lipps was held in custody for a total of more than five months before being released in December.
Zibolski said that the Fargo Police Department doesn’t have its own facial recognition software but uses state and federal databases instead. In this case, the police department of West Fargo, a different city, was investigating a similar case and — using their in-house AI software — ran fake IDs used by suspects through facial recognition. That’s what connected Angela Lipps to the crime.
“They forwarded that information to our detectives, who then assumed wrongly that they had also sent in the surveillance photos with that photo ID,” Zibolski said. “As you can imagine, the photo on the fake ID that I use doesn't necessarily mean that I am the person that's in that fake ID.”
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Zibolski said he found this out last Thursday, and he immediately sent the surveillance photos to the state database that he said should have been used from the beginning.
He also issued a temporary order that sets various parameters around using facial recognition, including a ban on using facial recognition from other police departments.
“We're happy to acknowledge when we make errors, and we've made a few in this case for sure, but also that we are willing to address those. And we've taken immediate action in all of these cases,” he said. “And we certainly apologize for any effect or adverse effect that this has had on trust in the community, because we want people to be confident in what we're doing.”
Zibolski did not apologize to Angela Lipps because the investigation is still active.
In a statement to MPR News, the West Fargo Police Department said the connection to Angela Lipps was “shared with the Fargo Police Department, at their request, in relation to their open cases.”
“The West Fargo Police Department did not forward any charges to the Cass County State’s Attorney’s Office regarding Angela Lipps. Detectives did not have enough evidence to charge any person of interest for the incident that took place in the City of West Fargo,” the statement read.
Zibolski said that the department’s investigators will be undergoing training for “understanding facial recognition returns and submissions.”
In a statement sent to MPR News, Lipps’ lawyers, Dane DeKrey and Eric Rice, said the press conference confirms their own findings.
“It appears that the Fargo Police Department did not undertake basic investigative efforts before causing a warrant and charges to issue for Angela Lipps,” the statement said.
They added that they will continue their own investigation until Lipps is cleared of suspicion and “actions that led to her being charged are corrected.”
Fargo Mayor Tim Mahoney spoke at the press conference and said that the issue is “under litigation right now,” and the city has contacted their insurance carrier. Last week, city commissioners had a closed-door meeting with the city attorney about a potential lawsuit from Lipps.
