A Tennessee grandmother who spent six months in jail after facial recognition tech falsely linked her to a North Dakota bank fraud investigation now wants compensation for what happened. Angela Lipps is suing the City of Fargo and a Fargo Police Department detective for $10 million over the incident, which led to the loss of her home, car, and dog.
In July 2025, a team of US Marshals arrested 50-year-old Lipps in Tennessee at gunpoint while she was babysitting four young children. She was booked into the county jail in Tennessee as a fugitive from justice wanted in North Dakota.
WTF. They didn’t even use footage of the suspect to falsely ID the TN woman, they used the picture on a fake ID used by the suspect !?!?!?!! That’s so mind-bogglingly stupid. How was this charge not thrown out immediately?
The source of the facial recognition was a fake ID used by a female suspect who was captured on surveillance footage in incidents involving multiple Fargo-area banks, according to the complaint. Lipps did not look like the suspect captured on surveillance video, according to the complaint, which noted their difference in build, facial features and tattoos. Prior to arrest, Lipps had also never been to North Dakota, according to the complaint.
How was this charge not thrown out immediately?
Essentially, it was. As soon as anyone actually took a look at the evidence. The problem is that the police held her in jail all that time claiming they had a positive ID when that was not the case. There are several problems to highlight here:
- poor police training on the tools they use
- lack of reasonable guidelines on how those tools should be applied
- an overburdened and slow-moving justice system that allows someone to be in jail for 6 months (or longer sometimes) before there’s any action on their case
Not to mention inability to afford a decent attorney, because we can be sure if she had enough money she wouldn’t have spent more than a day in jail.
“grandma”
…what is with the articles going out of their way to label 50 yr old women like this is elderly stage of life meanwhile men of 80 are gossiped about like they have their whole life still ahead of them.
I’d guess, in this case, imagining a wrongfully imprisoned grandma is thought to be more immoral than “just” a 50 year old. It also causes readers to imagine their own grandma in the same situation, instead of a stranger.
For the love of god can we please just ban facial recognition? Why is no one even talking about this?
Remember something like 200,000,000 IDs were found leaked online from the U.S. and Canada. Meaning exactly what happened to her could now happen to any of those people…
The article states the false match came off the fake ID used, not even the surveillance footage showing she was there.
The article states the false match came off the fake ID used, not even the surveillance footage showing she was there
No it does not. The false match was from fscial recognition
Here is the relevant part of the article:
Detectives reportedly reviewed video of a woman using a fake US army ID to withdraw tens of thousands of dollars.
By using facial recognition software, the investigators identified Lipps as a possible match
“As reported by Valley News Live, the complaint also alleges that Heck failed to disclose that the facial recognition result came from a photo on the suspect’s fake ID rather than surveillance footage.”
The facial recognition compared the fake ID to the person they arrested apparently. Not faceid on surveillance footage to the woman.
It alleges that Detective Lucas Heck proceeded with charges despite knowing that Lipps lived in Tennessee, had never visited North Dakota, did not match the physical description of the suspect captured on surveillance footage, and had no unexplained funds linking her to the thefts.
If proven true, this seems like a slam dunk win for the victim.
I wonder if this egregiousness would also expose Detective Heck to personal liability bypassing his qualified immunity so that he could be sued directly too.
I wonder if this egregiousness would also expose Detective Heck to personal liability bypassing his qualified immunity so that he could be sued directly too.
In the U.S.? That would mean the police would be accountable for their actions. Can’t have that.
$10 million isn’t enough.
This new season of Fargo is a crossover with Black Mirror
I love it when these cases come to light, and even to this day have some hope that the bad press, and expense of this lawsuit will incur some change in behavior from the city and police department. I know, pretty naive, right? Go get 'em Ms. Lipps, take the money and run.
Fargo PD is pretty bad. This is the exact type of shoddy police work I expect from them
You go, Granny!
“loss of her home, car” poor lady…
“and bog” Get the torches, men! We’re going hunting.
Aggregious
Egregious, unless you were going for that plus aggression, which is appropriate.
Aggreeegssious
Anti-Gregarious
My favorite dinosaur.
