This controversial technology is helping to find the escaped New Orleans inmates
The cameras were part of a network of around 5,000 operated around the city by the non-profit Project NOLA, 200 of which are outfitted with facial recognition technology. State police had shared information about the jailbreak with the organization.
The incident marks a win for the organization, whose camera network is believed to be unprecedented in the United States. The group is emblematic of a growing — albeit controversial — push to use facial recognition technology to help solve crimes.
'This is the exact reason why facial recognition technology is so critical,' New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said during a press conference earlier this week.
But as adoption of the technology has grown, advocacy groups warn that it could undermine individual privacy. Even worse, inaccurate matches by facial recognition technology systems run by police departments elsewhere have led to false arrests in other cities.
In New Orleans, those concerns may be heightened by the fact that Project NOLA is independent from local law enforcement agencies — although it shares information with police — and therefore isn't necessarily subject to the same scrutiny or accountability.
'This is the stuff of authoritarian surveillance states, and has no place in American policing,' Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, said in a statement following a Washington Post report about the effort earlier this week.
But Project NOLA is a community endeavor, said Executive Director Bryan Lagarde, supported by the churches, schools, businesses and individual homeowners who he says allow the group to place cameras on their properties and can remove them at any time.
'This has been a community endeavor from the very beginning,' Lagarde told CNN. 'If we ever violate public trust, (the camera network) comes down instantly and effortlessly by the community that built it.'
Project NOLA was created in 2009 to be a 'force multiplier' for local law enforcement agencies, whose resources had been impacted by Hurricane Katrina, Lagarde said. Today, the non-profit also operates 5,000 cameras in other cities around the country.
Project NOLA takes images of wanted suspects from law enforcement 'be on the lookout' alerts and feeds them into its 'hot list' system. When its network of facial recognition cameras identifies a potential match, it sends a real-time alert to law enforcement.
That's what happened on Friday, when two of the escaped inmates walked in front of Project NOLA cameras mounted on local businesses in New Orleans' French Quarter. One was arrested shortly after. The other was tracked to a housing complex where Project NOLA does not have cameras but was arrested on Tuesday thanks in part to the information provided by Project NOLA about his likely location, according to the group.
Five escapees from the Friday jailbreak remain at large.
Project NOLA cameras were also used to investigate the New Orleans terror attack last New Year's Day that killed 14 people. Lagarde declined to provide the name of the third-party company that makes the facial recognition artificial intelligence model the group uses in its cameras.
As with many applications of AI, there is no federal regulation regarding whether and how AI can be used by local law enforcement. But a number of other cities have barred the use of facial recognition by government agencies, including police, over concerns about its efficacy and ethical implications.
Research has shown that the technology is less effective at correctly identifying women and people of color than white men, fueling worries that the tech's shortcomings could have an outsize impact on historically marginalized groups. Given the history of racial bias within some US police forces, 'Black and other people of color are at greater risk of misidentification,' when facial recognition is brought into the fold, Nicol Turner Lee and Caitlin Chin Rothman wrote in a 2022 Brookings report.
CNN has reached out to NOPD for comment regarding its relationship with Project NOLA. Kirkpatrick, the police superintendent, told the Washington Post earlier this week that her agency had launched a review of officers' use of alerts provided by Project NOLA, the accuracy of the information the group provides and how the partnership fits within city rules.
Lagarde said Project NOLA has aimed to be transparent with the New Orleans community about its work, including by partnering with locals to put up its cameras and posting about its work on social media.
'All of our data is on-network, which means it comes from our own network of cameras. Our cameras are on people's homes, business, churches, schools… The facial recognition is not being paid for by tax dollars. It is not accessible directly by law enforcement,' he said. 'So, you know, we are the gatekeepers. We check everything that goes into the system make sure it's valid.'
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GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — To earn his freedom, 15-year-old Cayden Gillespie had to complete three school assignments a day. But school had gone virtual for Cayden and other incarcerated young people in Florida. And sometimes, he didn't understand it. One day last summer, he kept failing an online pre-algebra test. There were too many words to read. He didn't know how to find the value of x. And there were no math teachers to show him. 'I couldn't figure it out, and it kept failing me,' Cayden says. He asked the adult supervising the classroom for help. 'She didn't understand either.' Frustrated, Cayden picked up his metal desk and threw it against the wall. A security guard radioed the office for help. Cayden worried what might happen next. A respected online school — and a rocky rollout No matter the offense, states must educate students in juvenile detention. It's a complicated challenge, no doubt — and success stories are scarce. 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When Cayden arrived at the Orlando Youth Academy in January 2024, after four months in juvenile detention waiting for a bed in long-term confinement, he felt disoriented. He and his family had been told he would be placed at a residential center near their Gainesville home so they could visit on the weekends. The judge had recommended 30 days in the residential center — called 'treatment' — after Cayden pleaded guilty to two fraud felonies for using stolen credit cards, including one belonging to his parents. As he sat in a metal chair at his new case manager's desk, she described the routine and expectations of what she called 'the program.' He'd attend more than six hours of school a day and therapy five days a week, including with his parents over Zoom. None of this surprised Cayden. But then she said something that got his attention. 'The program' would likely last six to nine months. Panicked, he asked to call his mother. A monthslong stay in 'a teenage jail' Robyn Gillespie stepped outside the Gainesville McDonald's she managed when she saw a call from the Department of Juvenile Justice. That can't be true, she said, when Cayden told her his sentence was far longer than expected. So Cayden, still sitting next to his case manager, put down the phone and asked her again: Ma'am, you said six to nine months, right? Gillespie hung up and cried. 'They wouldn't understand him,' she remembers thinking. Gillespie's husband, Kenny Roach, initially thought going to juvenile detention could help Cayden, who had grown out of control. The family had recently moved to Florida to care for aging relatives, but Cayden's beloved older brother decided to return to Virginia, where they'd lived before. Cayden, who has autism, struggled being in a new place without his brother. He began leaving the house in the evening with neighborhood teens when the parents worked late. That led to shoplifting and, eventually, credit-card fraud. Roach and Gillespie pressed charges against their son. 'He really needs to get a week in a detention home,' Roach thought. As a youth, he himself had gone to juvenile detention twice, for as long as two weeks, and credited it for a life turnaround. 'I thought it would be a learning experience.' When he learned Cayden's time in the juvenile detention system would last much longer, he was in shock. 'Good lord, what do they hope to accomplish? A kid his age, with his diagnosis?' Roach remembers thinking. 'That's like being in a teenage jail.' Life in custody: Not much privacy, avoiding a 'level freeze' Cayden and the other detainees inside Orlando Youth Academy woke up every day at 6 a.m. and cleaned their cells. Only when they passed inspection could they enter the common area. Each detained youth had a toilet in their cell. 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Three different people held that job during the nine months he attended virtual school inside Orlando Youth Academy. When Cayden threw the desk out of frustration with the new online learning program, he received a 'level freeze' of three to five days, essentially extending his time at the residential commitment center. It's easy to tumble into 'dead time' Internal documents obtained by The Associated Press, plus interviews with parents, staff and outside specialists, show staff have recommended or given level freezes when students have broken laptops, refused to log into Zoom and even sent an email to ask for help initiating an online class. And when students don't participate in virtual school, the department's written protocol calls for taking away points they earn toward getting out. 'Students who have their heads down will be prompted by the teacher no more than two times to sit up and participate,' reads the Classroom Behavior Management Plan for Florida's juvenile justice schools. The first time Xavier Nicoll, 15, broke a laptop at his residential commitment center in Miami, it was because an online teacher wouldn't respond to his questions, according to his grandmother, Julie, who has raised him. He was arrested and sent to a different detention center to face charges. The three weeks he spent there didn't count toward his overall sentence because he can't receive 'treatment' there. Detainees call it 'dead time.' Once back at the residential center, he broke another laptop, his grandmother says, because a teen dared him to. Back he went to county detention and court for more dead time. Then, in January, when the in-person class supervisor wouldn't help him get into a locked online assignment, he broke a third, says Julie Nicoll. Xavier was initially meant to be held for six to nine months after breaking into a vape store. He's now on track to be confined at least 28 months. He's grown at least five inches in detention — and gone through puberty. Yet in school, Nicoll said in April, he was making no progress. 'He went in as an eighth grader and is still an eighth grader — and failing,' Nicoll said. Xavier's March report card showed he was earning a 34% in Civics and Career Planning, 12% in Pre-Algebra, 13% in Comprehensive Science and 58% in Language Arts. Nicoll has complained that her grandson, who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, hasn't been receiving special education services. The Department of Juvenile Justice and Florida Virtual School have canceled multiple meetings to discuss his education plan because Xavier keeps getting arrested and sent for dead time. 'He's trapped,' says Nicoll. 'No matter what we do, we can't seem to get him out.' Trouble rejoining the community? Nicoll and her husband have spent more than $20,000 in legal fees trying to win his release. They argue untreated brain inflammation due to mold exposure in detention, plus his disability, make it impossible for him to control his frustration during online school. In May, Xavier was arrested a fourth time. After turning in an assignment, he realized he'd made a mistake and asked the in-class supervisor to return it. The supervisor wouldn't give back his work, and he broke another laptop. Xavier pleaded guilty in August to two felonies for breaking laptops. 'They're setting him up to go into the community a failure," said Nicoll. It's unclear how many students are getting in trouble or extending their time because of behavior during virtual school. Arrests inside residential centers increased slightly in the first nine months after the department adopted virtual school, compared with the same period during the previous year. An analysis of publicly available data shows staff use of verbal and physical interventions has also risen slightly, to 2.4 physical or verbal interventions per 100 days from 1.8 interventions the previous year. The total number of youth in Florida's residential commitment centers increased to 1,388 in June, the latest data reported by the state, up 177 since July 2024, when the department adopted virtual instruction. That could indicate detainees are staying in confinement longer. 'Correlation does not equal causation," responded Amanda Slama, a Department of Juvenile Justice spokeswoman. "Other contributing factors could explain an increase in arrests if there is one.' Since December, the department has ignored or refused AP requests to visit juvenile confinement, speak to officials and release anonymized exit documents for students leaving commitment centers. Not all students are getting in trouble during online schooling, but that doesn't mean they're learning. Jalen Wilkinson, 17, received punishment during detention for fighting, but his father was unaware of punishment related to school. But when school went online in July 2024, Jalen started complaining that there weren't enough adults to help students with the virtual program. School, he says, is basically free time. Jalen has been especially frustrated that he couldn't complete his GED while confined — even though Florida Virtual School leaders say they've made it easier for detainees to take the exam. He was released in July. His father, John Terry, worries the time locked up was a waste and Jalen will struggle to re-enter high school and graduate. 'There's no rehabilitation whatsoever." Cayden is still trying to restart school In March, shackled with an ankle monitor, Cayden Gillespie finally left Orlando Youth Academy. The six to nine months his case manager predicted turned into 15. Between that and the 'dead time' waiting for a residential center bed, he was detained 19 months. Through therapy at the residential center, Cayden learned how to recognize his anger building and to take a break. His parents say the family therapy helped them better understand Cayden's needs and helped them all communicate. 'But the school part," Robyn Gillespie says, "that was a disaster.' Gillespie, her husband and Cayden are still trying to understand the consequences of going so long without proper schooling. Initially, they thought he'd go to the local public middle school, but the school said, at 15, he's too old. This spring, they tried to sign him up for Florida Virtual School, the same program he did in custody. Indeed, this was one of the arguments the state made for using virtual school inside confinement. But Robyn Gillespie says Florida Virtual told them he couldn't join so late in the year. Asked about Cayden's case, Florida Virtual said all students 'released from a facility receive one-on-one support from an FLVS transition specialist.' But Cayden's family said they were never offered transition help or told how he could continue where he left off in detention. The best option, they've been told by the local school district, is a charter school, where he can make up coursework quickly. 'That's the kind of place where they dismiss you if you don't show up on time,' says Robyn Gillespie. 'And there's no transportation. I'm just not sure that's going to work well for our family.' The terms of Cayden's probation require him to attend school or face confinement again. He starts at the charter school later this month. Says Gillespie: 'He has to be in school.' ___ The Associated Press receives support from the Public Welfare Foundation for reporting focused on criminal justice, and AP's education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at Bianca Vázquez Toness, The Associated Press Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Washington Post
3 minutes ago
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Trump's friendly-to-frustrated relationship with Putin takes the spotlight at the Alaska summit
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