In recent weeks, two Florida cases involving wrongful arrests tied to AI facial recognition have drawn renewed attention, one through newly dropped charges and another through an ACLU-backed lawsuit. One man lost his job, car, and home as a result of spending nearly three months behind bars for a crime he did not commit, while another was falsely accused of luring a child away from a McDonald’s. Incredibly, both men said they were hundreds of miles away from the scenes of their supposed crimes when they occurred, with one of them sharing timesheets from work as evidence.
The most recent case involves Jalil Richardson, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based father of 10 who says Jacksonville police made him a suspect in a stolen vehicle case after an automated facial recognition search flagged him from surveillance footage. According to a local report from Action News Jax, the investigation began on April 2, 2025, when a victim told the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (JSO) that he had unknowingly bought a stolen car from a man he met at a Publix grocery store. Investigators compared parking lot footage to Richardson’s photo using Automated Facial Recognition, or AFR. Richardson’s wife, Jasmine Jackson, said officers later told the family the system returned an 85% match. Richardson told WSOC-TV in Charlotte that he had never been to Florida in his entire life. His timecards later showed he was at work in North Carolina, roughly 400 miles from Jacksonville, when the car sale took place. By then, the case had already consumed months of his life. Richardson told Action News Jax he learned about the Florida warrant after calling police to his Charlotte home for an unrelated disturbance. He spent 33 days in Mecklenburg County custody before being extradited, then another 50 days in Jacksonville.
