Man jailed for a month despite Flock showing he was 5 miles from crime scene
2026-06-08 17:27 UTC
A San Diego police department is facing a lawsuit after jailing a man for a month based on a Flock camera alert that cops allegedly should have known, based on the timestamp, did not depict the car that they were looking for.
Last November, Hugo Parra was arrested on felony charges after San Diego police relied on Flock data and a witness statement to wrongly connect him to an attempted carjacking at gunpoint, the Times of San Diego reported. Cops were looking for a red Alfa Romeo car with tinted windows and a man wearing a gray hoodie, and Parra happened to be wearing a white hoodie while riding in a friend’s car that roughly matched the vehicle description.
Although Flock cameras can capture license plate data, cops did not have even a partial plate to help them verify if the car was involved in a violent crime. But the Flock data cops used to justify the arrest actually showed that Parra was five miles away at the time of the crime, Parra’s attorney, Alex Coolman, told the Times of San Diego. Rather than arrest him, cops could have used that data, as well as Parra’s cellphone location data, to corroborate Parra’s statement that he was innocent, Coolman said.
Replies (4)
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@chiliedogg@lemmy.world 2026-06-08 18:37
These systems are meant to be used against you. Police will never volunteer information that helps you.
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@Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 2026-06-09 05:12
When I lived in San Diego, I got a ticket for not paying the toll on an LA freeway I want within 100 miles of. This shit is a fucking trend, everyone. Lucky for me, the person driving that car didn’t murder anyone.
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@jtrek@startrek.website 2026-06-08 23:15
Police should be held individually accountable
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@SupraMario@lemmy.world 2026-06-08 23:57
“For the law holds, that it is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer" -Sir William Blackstone