BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — Bloomington Police and Hennepin County face a lawsuit from a man who said he was wrongly arrested and charged with a crime he didn't commit.
According to the suit filed by the ACLU, Kylese Perryman claims he was arrested and jailed solely on the basis of Hennepin County's facial recognition technology. Perryman said it took months to drop the criminal charges, even though he presented proof he was somewhere else at the time of the crimes.
At a news conference Wednesday, Perryman said he was humiliated and scared when he was wrongly accused.
The suit stems from a carjacking, armed robbery and assault at Mall of America in September 2021. The victim's credit cards were later used at a Walmart. Perryman's lawyers said Bloomington Police relied on Hennepin County's facial recognition software to ID Perryman and then compared an old booking photo to the Walmart surveillance video.
His attorneys claim Perryman spent five days in jail and charges were brought without any other investigation, even though there were big differences between the suspect and Perryman's appearance, including the fact that Perryman has tattoos and the video showed the suspect did not.
Months later the charges were dropped, and Perryman had them expunged from his record.
In a statement sent to KARE 11 on Friday, the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office said it has "highly trained analysts who are aware of the parameters for use of facial recognition technology" and added that although they assisted Bloomington PD in the case, "facial recognition technology was not used in those attempts."
Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt also challenged the suit's claims that facial recognition is ever used on its own for suspect identification.
“Facial recognition technology was not used in the criminal case referenced in the lawsuit by Mr. Perryman," Sheriff Witt said in the statement. "In general, this technology can be used to provide investigative leads, which is ultimately corroborated with other investigative information. Facial recognition is not used by the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office as a sole source for positive identification or probable cause to arrest.”
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