The story of Michael Lowe — held in a filthy jail for 17 days after someone at American Airlines misidentified him as a shoplifter — should shock you and make you angry, but it should also serve as a warning.
As technology advances, a lot of people who think of themselves as investigators or online detectives will conduct their own analysis of footage. Couple that with uncaring and brutal police officers who don’t bother to check out the information that they are given and you create any number of traumatizing and even deadly scenarios.
Online vigilantes frequently misidentify participants in news stories that go viral — we’re lucky that the police often don’t follow up on them. But when an airline employee does this, and the police blindly trust them and police in another state then act on that trust, an innocent person can be brutalized or even killed.
Technology, surveillance footage included, can make it seemingly easy to identify a potential crime suspect. As technology has evolved rapidly, institutional safeguards have not evolved alongside it. For example, Lowe had no idea that he was wanted for a crime he didn’t commit.
Breonna Taylor had no idea that the Kentucky cops watching her thought she was some kind of criminal mastermind either. When compared to Taylor, a Black woman who was killed when the cops forced their way into her home at night, Lowe honestly got off lightly. He’s not dead. Just traumatized and with his business in shambles.
Taylor did not get justice. Because of the involvement of American Airlines, Lowe might.
But what these cases do have in common is the way they both expose the self-justifying lie that’s buried in the premise of, “I don’t care about surveillance, if I’ve done nothing wrong, I am not going to be harmed.”
This simply isn’t the case — because law enforcement makes mistakes. Law enforcement can be racist and brutal and terrifying. And when something irreversible happens, your innocence absolutely will not matter in the moment.
I am not an expert on the subject of police reform (or abolitionism for that matter), but I am an expert on the misuse of technology and I can absolutely tell you that the way in which technology is used, both deliberately or accidentally, will have a real impact on our lives and our interaction with the carceral state.
Buried in Lowe’s story is the manner in which he was held in jail for 17 days. Based on his lawyer’s statements, you can tell that his protestations of innocence only seemed to amuse and aggravate the staff at the jail. In a system that’s not broken, a couple of phone calls would have cleared this situation up — yes, even though his warrant was issued in Texas and he was held in New Mexico.
In fact, the fact that New Mexico cops can pick you up on a Texas warrant already tells you everything you need to know. The information flow should go both ways. Lowe’s identity should have been easily verified. But when it’s not “shoot first and ask questions later,” it’s “torture people first, ask questions later.”
Now imagine how bad all of this can get when we introduce more technology — unchecked, with zero safeguards — into how policing and criminal justice operate.
Think about robot police dogs, for example. Think about facial identification software. Think about the data you upload to health apps (especially pertinent as we move forward with potential abortion bans).
Think about it hard — and organize accordingly.
Image: Lianhao Qu