Police falsely accused Porcha Woodruff of carjacking after misusing facial recognition technology, which experts say has built-in racial biases
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00:00 (suspenseful music)
00:03 That morning, I was getting my girls ready for school
00:07 as usual day.
00:09 I heard a loud bang, bang at my door.
00:12 There were police officers at the door,
00:13 but initially standing at the door,
00:15 it was a female police officer.
00:16 She asked me if I was Portia Woodruff.
00:18 I confirmed and told her, "Yeah, that's me.
00:20 "How can I help you?"
00:21 She said, "Well, I have a warrant for your arrest."
00:23 I was puzzled.
00:24 So I was like, "A warrant?
00:26 "You know, what do you mean?
00:27 "Why do you have a warrant for my arrest?
00:29 "What's going on?"
00:30 And another gentleman actually stepped in
00:33 and said, "Well, we have a warrant for your arrest
00:35 "for carjacking."
00:36 And I'm like, "Carjacking?"
00:37 I opened my door a little bit more so they could see.
00:39 I'm like, "I'm eight months pregnant.
00:41 "My kids are standing there in the process."
00:43 So I'm like, "Well, they are joking and they're serious."
00:46 I was like, I told my daughters, I'm like,
00:48 "Hey, go upstairs and wake my fiance up."
00:50 We continued to try to plead with the officers,
00:52 like, "Hey, you might wanna check the paperwork
00:53 "and see if the person was pregnant.
00:55 "There's no way that you have the right person.
00:57 "You're knocking on the wrong door."
00:59 My fiance was like, "Well, just go with them,
01:01 "see, you know, ask them some questions
01:03 "and see what's going on."
01:04 As they were arresting me, I didn't find out
01:06 until I was actually in the car,
01:09 headed to the detention center
01:10 that I was going to the detention center.
01:12 I kinda just broke out crying 'cause I'm like,
01:15 "What?
01:15 "This doesn't make sense.
01:16 "How are you taking me straight to jail
01:17 "and I don't even know what's going on?"
01:19 Once I got there, they were making it seem
01:21 like I was gonna be there for like two or three days.
01:24 Nobody was listening to anything.
01:25 They were saying everyone was looking at me like,
01:27 "Hey, you're pregnant, what's going on?
01:28 "Why are you here?"
01:29 But I'm like, "I don't even know."
01:31 I was in the cell.
01:32 It was a lot going on.
01:33 I was having contractions.
01:34 I was trying to, you know, make sure.
01:36 I was having an anxiety attack.
01:39 I don't know what's going on.
01:40 I'm being locked up.
01:41 I could possibly go into a mode of being overly stressed
01:44 and lose my son.
01:45 They took me to the interview room.
01:47 She went down the list of questions,
01:49 which everything was no, because I'm like,
01:51 "I don't know what's going on.
01:53 "No, no, no, no, no."
01:55 Like, do you have anything in your description telling you
01:58 that the woman that you were looking for was pregnant?
02:01 (soft music)
02:03 (soft music)
02:06 - End of the frame, well, you know,
02:30 things like this happen sometime.
02:32 Unfortunately, this was the mistake that was made.
02:35 And, you know, we got your picture
02:37 and it was wrong, basically.
02:39 That's what I was told.
02:40 And I'm like, "Okay, so where do we go from here?"
02:44 My biggest thing is, what if I hadn't been pregnant?
02:49 Attorney Land would still be probably fighting on my behalf.
02:52 My thing is how many other people's cases
02:56 or situations have slipped through the crack
02:58 and wasn't noticed or no one knows about.
03:02 And here they are sitting in jail
03:04 for something they probably didn't do.
03:06 And it was maybe facial recognition
03:08 that put them in that position
03:09 or whatever the case may have been that no one did.
03:12 It went the extra mile to do the extra research
03:15 that may have needed to be done,
03:16 the extra work that may have needed to be done.
03:18 That is a problem.
03:20 I have to bring awareness to this whole situation
03:22 because if it would have just been a little bit more work
03:24 put into something like that,
03:26 we wouldn't even be sitting here
03:27 discussing this situation now.
03:29 I just want to be more involved
03:48 to bring awareness to people of what's going on.
03:52 I have to, because like I said,
03:54 had it not been for my son,
03:56 I feel like my son saved me.
03:58 So I'm just trying to do my job to save someone else.