SurveillanceHigh
Flock Safety License-Plate Reader Reportedly Misread Plate, Leading Toledo, Ohio, Police to Stop Motorist at Gunpoint and Deploy K-9
- Occurred
- Apr 11, 2024
- Published
- Mar 9, 2026
- Source
- AI Incident Database
Summary
Toledo, Ohio, police stopped motorist Brandon Upchurch at gunpoint after a Flock Safety license-plate reader incorrectly matched his truck to a stolen plate. Officers released a K-9 that bit him and arrested him. Police later said the alert was a misread; one officer was reprimanded for failing to verify the plate, and all charges against Upchurch were later dropped.
Developers
- Surveillance technology developers
- Flock Safety
- Automated license plate reader (ALPR) developers
Deployers
- Toledo Police Department
- Police departments in the United States
- Law enforcement
- Adrian Wilson
Harmed parties
- Road users
- Motorists
- Individuals mistakenly detained by law enforcement
- Epistemic integrity
- Drivers
- Brandon Upchurch
Classification
Category confidence: 95%
Severity confidence: 90%
Rationale: Automated license plate reader system caused wrongful police stop with physical harm, indicating surveillance tech failure.
Classifier: Qwen/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-FP8