A brief recap: a few weeks ago I’d taken the $155,000 Range Rover I was testing out to run some errands with my wife in Plymouth, Minnesota. I was backing out of a parking space in front of my local Kohl’s when four cop cars came screaming up and “initiated a box and pin on the vehicle,” as the police report says. Hands on their guns, the officers ordered us out of the vehicle, patted us down, and eventually told us the Range Rover’s license plate—New Jersey 34 10 DTM—was stolen, they suspected the vehicle itself was stolen too, and they’d used Flock cameras to track me down over the last two days.
The scenario involving my wife and I is just one of many like it. Thomas noted that the system is 99% accurate today, but it’s performing 20 billion reads a month. That 1% error rate, of which I was a part of in June, makes for two hundred million misreads a month.
Fascists don’t particularly care about false positives. The cameras are operating as intended.
Absolutely this, and why they’re fine with executing innocent people on death row, cops killing people who were running away or complying and not a threat, or some DA imprisoning someone for decades on crappy evidence only to be found innocent after half their life is gone.
👉 The system is working exactly as intended and must be destroyed
Yes, the Flock system is working correctly, as a tool for police to stalk and harass innocent people.
Also a tool to give plausible deniability when shit hits the fan.
They always claim everything they do is correct and working. To admit otherwise means opening the department up to a lawsuit they may actually lose their jobs over.
They drove up and didn’t check/verify the plate before engaging? That seems stupid and lacking responsibility.
What was it, two cop cars? Then I assume four cops? Always makes me wonder if the engagement is in a warranted amount. I assume it’s the norm in the US, maybe it’s necessary for “stolen car”, although I’m skeptical, and it certainly makes it worse for the falsely accused exposed to it. And it makes the lack of verification, making it not just a flock false positive but an engagement false positive, victimizing civilians, worse.
and then bragged ‘you’re lucky we didn’t come out with guns drawn’
fucking yokel shitbags
four cop cars came flying out of nowhere and boxed us in. The officers jumped out and started shouting.
So, 4 cars, who knows how many cops.
Really, this is a story about how absurd cops are in the USA.
At no point in this tale was there ever a car reported stolen. It was only a set of license plates that went missing. So, at no point was there a car thief, you can’t have a car thief if there’s no stolen car. Obviously, if there’s no car thief, there can’t be any reason to assume that the person in the “stolen car” will be violent. Yet, somehow the police charged up aggressively, boxing him in using 4 cars, jumping out and shouting, hands on their guns.
The cops even claimed that their reaction was “lucky” for the guy:
“You’re lucky we’re in Plymouth. If you were in Minneapolis, they definitely would’ve come at you with guns drawn.”
And the guy considers himself lucky too:
And the more I’ve sat with the aftermath, the more I’m thinking about how, with a different set of officers in a different city, or a different unsuspecting driver with 34 ## DTM New Jersey plates who was a little less collected, this could’ve ended so, so much worse. Thank God our kids weren’t with us. I’m not sure if I would’ve been able to react as calmly.
If he hadn’t been as calm, he might have been killed by the cops because he might not have reacted as calmly.
The fact that this is being framed as a “Flock” issue is absurd. It’s like a story about a sensor in front of the orphan crushing machine which sometimes misidentifies normal people as orphans and throws them onto the conveyor belt. Sure, that’s an issue, but let’s focus on this orphan crushing machine first.
Police state.
That’s not what that phrase means.
It is not uncommon for cops to obtain warrants for the wrong house and tear that place apart looking for drugs or someone who was never there. The departments have no financial responsibility for the damage and personal injuries they cause. Why would they bother reading the plate?
Always makes me wonder if the engagement is in a warranted amount.
We’ve hired so many cops and they’ve all got nothing (practical) to do. So it’s not unusual to see cops piling up around any kind of dispatch.
I suppose boxing in a car requires a car each in front and behind?
It is working perfectly as intended. It is intended to facilitate fascist authority, siphon wealth from municipalities, and help make cops feel tough so they can more efficiently lord over their communities.
Well, at least we know this can only happen 98 times, by mistake.
fuck flock!
I like license plates as I think some degree of accountability is important when you are controlling a highly deadly machine. If you make moves that endanger people they should have a way to identify you. I’ve always felt those tinted plate covers were the sign of being a real asshole driver. Now I think if there is anyway to block your plate from flock cameras you should try to do it. Has any coating been effective for this?
Doesn’t matter, they don’t rely on just the plates. They match on make/model, color, condition (specific dents, scratches, damage, repairs, etc), bumper stickers, face matching on the driver and/or passengers, sound, bluetooth and/or radio IDs, and more.
You can make things that fool it, Benn Jordan demonstrates doing this with something that is hard to even notice as a human. But all that’s going to do is draw extra attention to you. In a surveillance state anyone trying to maintain privacy is clearly guilty after all.
It’s hard to be on your side when the first fact mentioned is the price of the vehicle.
He is emphasizing the fact that the cops care about a $155k ‘stolen’ vehicle, and they they are here to protect the wealthy
The guy himself is a journalist who was doing his job, part of which is an extended test-drive of a vehicle, provided by the manufacturer.
People gotta use their humble-brags any way they can.
I know people here want to talk about flock, but does no one find it questionable a journalist got loaned a $150k vehicle to review? And then another alleged journalist according to the story got pulled over in a $105k Land Rover they were loaned to review? As a journalist, do they also receive homes and women to review? Sounds like some serious corruption right there.
How did you think product reviews happened?
By companies that buy reviews. Not journalism.
That definitely happens some of the time, in some places. Journalism still exists, however.
Product reviews require more than a ‘test drive’.
Oh bless your heart.
Not journalism.
Ah yes, we all thought ‘Journalism’ was a real thing, but alas, Capitalism/corruption has taken over all mainstream ‘journalism’, and ‘truth’ is who pays the most… …pretty sad…
If they are automotive journalists, which in this case they are, then yes this is completely normal. People get review copies of games / books / movies / phones. So why wouldn’t they loan out cars?
That isn’t journalism. That is corporate PR and marketing.
Read more product reviews from more varied publications. You will see that there is a range of accountability in the sourcing of the product. Not all of it is direct marketing.
However, you can expect all of it to be ideologically consumerist.
