A woman from Wisconsin experienced a shocking situation when she was arrested—at gunpoint—twice, all due to a mistake involving her vehicle in a surveillance system.
Amber Newell found her car mistakenly linked to a homicide investigation from July, even though she wasn’t involved at all. It turns out that an employee from the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) overlooked removing her vehicle from the Flock system, which resulted in the incorrect alert remaining active.
This error prompted two separate incidents where Newell was apprehended at gunpoint, and her car was taken by the police, as reported by CBS 58.
“It was really embarrassing. They handcuffed us and then walked us to the car. I had no idea what was happening and was scared. All around, I could see people filming the scene from their cars,” Newell, who lives in Brookfield, Wisconsin, recounted.
The entire situation, which she described as a “nightmare,” also led to her losing her job—actually, she noted she lost two jobs because of the highway stops.
“This is just a nightmare. It truly is,” she mentioned. “Both of my jobs are gone now, simply because of being stopped like that.”
Bodycam footage shows officers from the Brookfield Police Department surrounding her vehicle on I-94 with their weapons drawn on August 6. They expressed annoyance once they realized the wrongful flag against her car was never corrected.
“They just released the car without removing it from the alert system. One of the officers even said they just returned from Milwaukee, supposedly to fix it. Why am I not surprised?” one officer commented.
Just weeks earlier, Newell’s car had been incorrectly flagged in connection to a homicide, resulting in a wrongful arrest. Although the authorities impounded her vehicle, they handed it back to her without correcting the flag in the Flock system.
“I’m just really angry at the Milwaukee Police Department. They failed the system, they failed me, and honestly, they failed everyone involved. I feel traumatized now,” Newell expressed.
MPD acknowledged to the Daily Caller that an alert was inadvertently left active. They explained that the persistent vehicle alert led to the assumption that the car was still wanted.
Now, Newell and her family are apprehensive about driving, worried they might get pulled over unexpectedly. “On the way to my current location, there was a minor accident. My daughter said, ‘Mama, I think I don’t want to be in the car anymore,’” she recounted.
Brookfield Police Chief Christopher Garcia defended his officers’ actions during the arrest on August 6, deeming them appropriate based on the information they had.
Newell mentioned that the Brookfield officers pointed fingers at the Milwaukee Police for the error. “All they would say was to contact Milwaukee Police; they kept emphasizing it was their fault, not ours,” she stated.
Newell has now hired civil rights attorney B’Ivory LaMarr, who noted that while MPD admitted their error, they are still seeking a more thorough apology and explanation. LaMarr remarked that Newell has suffered real damages and trauma from this occurrence.
At this point, they have not filed any legal action.
