Arrested Because a Camera Got It Wrong

The promise of automated license plate readers is simple: catch the guilty. The reality is messier. These systems misread plates, match the wrong cars, and generate false “hot list” hits — and when an officer acts on the alert without verifying it, an innocent person ends up in handcuffs. It has already happened here in North Carolina. Twice.

Fayetteville: Jacqueline McNeill

In July, Fayetteville police accused 51-year-old Jacqueline McNeill of a drive-by shooting outside a vape shop on Camden Road. Their evidence? A city surveillance camera caught a white Nissan sedan leaving the area — and a license plate reader more than a mile away on Owen Drive caught McNeill’s white Nissan. That was enough to arrest her. Hours later, after she had been jailed, police realized she had nothing to do with the shooting, released her, and apologized. The city settled with her for $60,000 and a written apology from the police chief. Her own attorney warned that officers were leaning on technology instead of real investigation. (CBS17; The News & Observer, Apr 27, 2025)

Charlotte: Jasmine Horne

In June 2021, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police were hunting for a woman wanted in a stabbing — a woman who happened to share a last name with Jasmine Horne, a schoolteacher. An officer entered the wrong information into the license-plate “hot list” system, and that flag led police to handcuff Horne, an innocent teacher, on a Charlotte street. A citizens review board later voted 9 to 0 that she had been wrongfully detained. CMPD changed its policy to verify hot-list entries every 12 hours instead of every 24. Horne resolved her complaint with the city (reported at $10,000). (WCNC; Citizens Review Board, 9-0)

It’s not only North Carolina

Start just across the state line, in the Charlotte metro. On Valentine’s Day 2024, Steven Melvin, 42, was pulling into his own apartment complex near Lake Wylie in York County, South Carolina, when a sheriff’s deputy stopped him with a gun drawn and aimed “directly at him,” ordered him to kneel with his hands over his head, and held him there for more than five minutes — because a Flock camera had flagged his black BMW as stolen. The camera had misread a single letter of his plate, matching it to a stolen dark BMW that was one character off. The Sheriff’s Office blamed a tinted tag cover — yet its own records show the same cameras had correctly read Melvin’s plate 13 times that month before the stop. He sued on June 29, 2026. Flock’s answer, for this very story: its readers are “highly accurate,” wrong hits are “rare,” and alerts “should be treated as investigative leads” that officers must independently verify — exactly what did not happen here. (The Herald / Charlotte Observer, July 9, 2026.)

And it is a national pattern. In Aurora, Colorado, an ALPR misread led police to order a mother and her family — including a 6-year-old — out of their car at gunpoint and onto hot pavement, after the system wrongly matched her Colorado plate to a stolen Montana motorcycle. The Electronic Frontier Foundation documented a dozen such cases nationwide: innocent people stopped at gunpoint, jailed, even bitten by a police dog after a misread or a skipped verification. In one, a camera confused an “H” for an “M,” helping trigger a wrongful stop and a $45,000 settlement. (EFF; CBS News)

And the technology is not reliable enough to trust on its own: an independent IPVM test found ALPRs misidentified a plate’s home state about 1 in every 10 reads. (EFF)

Why this should worry every driver in New Hanover County

A hot-list hit or a misread doesn’t ask whether you’re a good person. It produces a name — and too often an officer acts on it before confirming it. The more cameras a county installs, the more flags it generates, and the more chances the machine points at the wrong car, the wrong plate, the wrong you. The cost isn’t theoretical. It’s handcuffs, a jail cell, a night you can’t get back — and, in Aurora, a gun pointed at someone’s children.

A camera doesn’t make arrests. People do — when they trust the camera more than the facts.

What you can do

• Sign the petition to remove Flock cameras from Wilmington and New Hanover County.
• Email your county commissioners — ask them how many wrongful stops they’re willing to accept.
• Share these two names. McNeill and Horne are why “nothing to hide” is no protection at all.

Sources

• CBS17 — Fayetteville woman wrongfully arrested in drive-by case, receives settlement (and The News & Observer, Apr 27, 2025)
• WCNC — CMPD changes after Jasmine Horne wrongfully detained
• WCNC — Citizens Review Board votes 9-0: teacher wrongfully detained
• The Herald / Charlotte Observer — York County man held at gunpoint over an incorrect Flock hit; sheriff blames illegal tag cover (July 9, 2026)
• EFF — “The Human Toll of ALPR Errors”
• CBS News — “When license plate readers get it wrong”

This page is general information about North Carolina and federal law, not legal advice, and creates no attorney-client relationship. For advice about a specific situation, consult a licensed North Carolina attorney.