In Plane Sight, False Recognition; Poisoned Without Permission | ANF Investigates

Behind the Investigation with Atlanta News First

Black men jailed, wrongfully accused, and arrested. One technology at the center of it all.

Police use facial recognition to link people to crimes they did not commit. Atlanta News First exposes cases from Atlanta, Balitmore, New York, to Louisiana.

A common denominator is that law enforcement agencies are not following policy because the policy does not exist.

Randall Reid was arrested in Atlanta for a robbery which occurred in a city he never visited. Before his case, it happened to two other fathers on the East Coast.

Today, the list grows. As it turns out, bias can be embedded in facial recognition software. Which means in the search for suspects, there's a list of new victims.

While more police agencies are beginning to use the technology, other non-law enforcement state entities are following their lead.
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RACIAL PROFILING AT THE GATE

Plainclothes drug agents search innocent passengers at airport gates across the United States, looking for cash.

The drug agents seize anything over $5,000 if the passenger can’t prove — on the spot — that their own money didn’t come from drug trafficking. The government seizes the cash when no drugs are found, without arresting the traveler or charging them with a crime. The DEA gets to keep the money it seizes.

Our ongoing investigation revealed that passengers selected for what the government calls “random, consensual encounters” are actually profiled by the drug agents who search Black men far more often than any other group of passengers.

We analyzed data showing that, for drug agents to find just one passenger with money, they have to publicly search 10 departing passengers. Some of those profiled passengers are left deeply scarred by the process, even when nothing is seized.
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Poisoned without permission

Three scientists are calling for more testing of a dangerous toxin impacting residents who live in the Rome, Georgia, area. It’s in response to an Atlanta News First investigation that uncovered elevated levels of the chemical compound in some residents’ blood.

For decades, the Oostanaula River that supplied Rome’s drinking water was contaminated with perfluoroalkyl (PFAS). The chemical group is linked to serious illness, including cancer.

City officials switched to a different water source in 2017, but many residents have always wondered how the contaminated water impacted them prior to the disclosure.

When the Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) said it didn’t have plans to investigate, Atlanta News First Investigates purchased testing kits that can measure the total values of some of the most common PFAS and asked Rome-area residents to test their blood.