Tennessee Grandmother Sues North Dakota Officials Over Wrongful Detention
A grandmother from Tennessee has initiated legal action against a city and police department in North Dakota, claiming her wrongful detention for nearly six months resulted from the misuse of artificial intelligence facial recognition technology in a bank theft investigation.
Angela Lipps, now 50 years old and living in Elizabethton, Tennessee, reported that she was looking after her neighbor’s four children when she was arrested at gunpoint by police in July 2025.
The lawsuit, submitted on September 15, 2026, suggests that law enforcement officials relied solely on a flawed AI facial recognition match to extradite Lipps from Tennessee to North Dakota, despite her lack of connection to the alleged crime or the state.
Experts in police technology pointed out that this case is just one instance in a growing number of reported misuses of facial recognition technology by law enforcement.
In a GoFundMe post, Lipps recounted, “I sat in a county jail in Tennessee for 108 days. They said I was a fugitive from justice. I had no bail. No one interviewed me. I just sat and waited.” Her situation highlights significant issues within the justice system.
The bank theft in question occurred in April and May 2025, with an unidentified woman reportedly using fake identification and stolen identities to commit bank fraud in Fargo and West Fargo, North Dakota, as detailed in the lawsuit.
It appears that officials utilized a photo from a fraudulent ID provided by the suspect for facial recognition searches via Clearview AI, rather than relying on surveillance footage, according to the allegations in the complaint.
While Clearview AI advises that facial recognition matches should only be treated as potential leads, Fargo police allegedly misidentified the AI match as a confirmed identification, failing to disclose that it wasn’t independently verified, as stated in the complaint. In contrast, the West Fargo Police Department supposedly refrained from pursuing charges since the AI match lacked corroboration.
A police captain from West Fargo described AI facial recognition as “close to a last-ditch effort” in investigations, further illustrating the hesitance within law enforcement regarding this technology.
The complaint outlined that Detective Lucas Heck did not examine Lipps’ financial or travel data, which could have shown her whereabouts during the bank thefts, nor did he conduct photo lineups with bank tellers. Additionally, surveillance footage supposedly revealed significant differences between Lipps and the suspect, such as contrasting physical builds and a neck tattoo on Lipps that the suspect lacked.
“Heck ignored, concealed, and misrepresented exculpatory evidence that Lipps did not commit the bank thefts,” the complaint alleged.
On July 14, 2025, federal Marshals arrested Lipps at a neighbor’s house in Tennessee based on a nationwide warrant. She was subsequently extradited to North Dakota, where she faced charges involving eight felony counts, one of which could result in a 10-year prison sentence. She was held on a $100,000 bond.
All charges were dismissed on December 24, 2025, after Lipps provided bank records confirming her presence in Tennessee at the time of the thefts.
Upon her release, Lipps discovered that her home, car, and personal belongings had been lost during her absence.
After facing public backlash, Fargo officials held a press conference in March 2026, admitting mistakes in their investigation, particularly concerning the use of facial recognition technology. Mayor Tim Mahoney remarked, “When chief found some errors that were made in this area of where we got our facial recognition and how that worked, we immediately addressed it.”
Clare Garvie, who works with the Policing Project, mentioned that the issue of police misidentifying individuals through AI matches has become more common as law enforcement assimilates these technologies into their procedures. According to Garvie, there have been at least 16 documented cases of wrongful arrests linked to such misidentifications—often due to insufficient follow-up investigations.
Nate Freed-Wessler from the American Civil Liberties Union echoed these concerns, describing how the integration of artificial intelligence in law enforcement has led to increased wrongful arrests across the U.S. He noted that issues with AI utilization have persisted for several years, and the frequency of such incidents seems to be on the rise.
The emerging narrative surrounding AI in policing raises questions about accountability, accuracy, and the rights of individuals entangled in its application.
