"Baltimore cops swarmed and handcuffed a high school student after an artificial intelligence tool mistook his bag of Doritos for a weapon.Taki Allen, 16, was hanging out with his friends after football practice at Kenwood High School Monday night when all of a sudden, armed officers approached him."It was like eight cop cars that came pulling up for us. At first, I didn't know where they were going until they started walking toward me with guns, talking about, 'Get on the ground,' and I was like, 'What?'" Allen told local outlet WBAL-TV.The student described the moment he was handcuffed by police: "They made me get on my knees, put my hands behind my back, and cuffed me. Then, they searched me and they figured out I had nothing.”Allen said police then found the bag of Doritos he had been eating shortly before."
The story continues at The Independent. How difficult is it to be a high school student nowadays? This is a generation that has gone through mandatory shooter response drills since their childhood. Now AI is deciding whether they are suspected of being a criminal, and the responders come with guns drawn. FWIW any childhood stress in my era from nuclear war drills pales in comparison.
One thing that strikes me about American LEOs is how quickly they move to force and violence. In general, they can't wait to escalate situations and use absurd amounts of force. Who needs 8 cars full of police officers to arrest a 16-year old?
ReplyDeleteIn my neighborhood, police officers used to try and ticket a lot of people for the heinous crime of not fully stopping for a STOP sign. But while they were totally able to stop people on their own, they generally preferred to call backup of 3 or 4 buddies who would show up with screaming sirens to back them up handing out a ticket. They openly admitted they did that to intimidate the people who got a ticket. IMHO, you're no t much of a cop if you can't handle a very basic traffic violation without creating a traffic mess on a suburban street because 4 cop cars are parked all across the road with flashing lights.
What's so weird is that all these guys want to pretend they're tough, but they're just not. They can't just have a normal conversation and deal with any situation without relying on shouting, shoving, and tackling an unsuspecting person with several of them. This is not normal behavior. They're really nothing much more than IRL Cartmans shouting RESPECT MY AUTHORITY.
Also stop using systems that can't differentiate a back of chips from a gun. Seriously. Just stop. And admit you wasted tax money.
Oh and this reminds me that Minnesota hero Prince wrote a song about policing in Baltimore:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMLI7LFf84w
The incident that is the subject of this blog post did not involve the Baltimore Police Department, but thanks for the video.
DeleteMy hope is that every high school student starts carrying a crumpled chip bag.
ReplyDeleteIn a hysterical reaction to the statistical micro-threat of an active shooter, school personnel are doing more harm than the shooters themselves; that is, unless we ignore psychological harm to millions. Instead of focusing on the police response, which appears reasonable given the details of the case (what they knew and when they knew it), we might ask who decided it was a good idea to install an AI surveillance system in the first place? No doubt at great expense, both in monetary and social cost. Of course there will be "false positives" and police will respond accordingly. But what are children learning from living in a surveillance state, every school day of the year? That is, what's the lesson here? Who is really benefiting from terrorizing kids with shooter drills? I don't think it's the kids. I hate to think it's drama junkie adults in our school systems. I hate to think there's no critical mass of rational teachers and administrators who've read Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.
ReplyDeleteImagine if he'd been holding a bag of Skittles.
ReplyDeleteThe AI and the people trained to use it followed protocol and the alert was cancelled 2 minutes after it was sent to school adminstrators. Police were not called in and did not immediately rush to the scene. All worked as it should until the school principal intervened...
ReplyDeleteThe rest of the story:
"The incident unfolded after hours on Monday, October 20, when the Omnilert weapons detection system—installed across all BCPS campuses—flagged an image from a school camera at 7:04 p.m. The AI identified the orange snack bag as potentially matching firearm characteristics, triggering an automatic alert.
Trained safety personnel reviewed the footage within two minutes and canceled the alert by 7:06 p.m., determining it was a false positive. No law enforcement notification was issued through official channels.
However, the school’s principal, who received the initial alert for awareness, independently contacted the on-site School Resource Officer (SRO) at 7:17 p.m. The SRO, following after-hours protocol, alerted the local precinct. Police arrived at 7:23 p.m. responding to reports of a suspicious person with a weapon.
Omnilert (the AI company) scans for objects—not individuals—and requires human validation before any police involvement. While administrators receive alerts and cancellations for situational awareness, only validated threats trigger official responses."
https://tinyurl.com/5n6csmuy