Name: Detroit City Council president slams caravan protest as 'totally disrespectful'
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Detroit City Council president slams caravan protest as 'totally disrespectful'

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Detroit Free Press The Detroit Police Department will&nbsp;conduct community outreach&nbsp;about facial recognition technology before&nbsp;city leaders vote on extending the software contract, City Council President Brenda Jones said Tuesday before blasting&nbsp;a one day earlier.Jones spoke at a city council meeting, where the&nbsp;proposed contract extension&nbsp;was originally scheduled to be referred to the council's Public Health and Safety committee. The item, which she said wasn't planned for a vote, was pulled from the agenda by Monday.Protesters who've&nbsp;marched daily in Detroit since the end of May have been calling for an end to the use of controversial facial recognition technology. Police use still images taken from Project Green Light surveillance footage, along with still images from other sources, with the facial recognition software to identify suspects in violent crimes. Project Green Light has cameras at , designated by green lights.More:Protesters with the movement called Detroit Will Breathe&nbsp;ramped up their efforts to abolish the use of facial recognition technology and Project Green Light on Monday, mobilizing&nbsp;a caravan of roughly 40 cars to drive&nbsp;past the homes of three council members.Jones lambasted the caravan as "totally disrespectful" to neighborhood residents. She said she fielded calls from people&nbsp;who complained that they couldn't get out of their driveways. Residents reported seeing&nbsp;people&nbsp;they considered to be "suburbanites" blowing their car horns for minutes at a time, she said.&nbsp;Jones said she will&nbsp;request that police ticket people for violating the noise ordinance if it happens again.&nbsp;"And at some point, enough is&nbsp;enough," she said. "What a council member does on their job should not have to affect their neighbors, nor should it have to affect their family."More:More:Other council members echoed Jones' disapproval.Jones brought up a rumor&nbsp;that a&nbsp;member of the city council&nbsp;may have helped orchestrate the caravan.No council members were involved in the planning of Tuesday's&nbsp;protest, according to Tristan Taylor, an activist who led the caravan and is one of the leaders of&nbsp;the daily marches organized in the city following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Taylor, of Detroit, wrote on Facebook that if council members felt vulnerable, "they now have (a) sense of how we feel in being continuously monitored and treated as criminals."&nbsp;“It’s so funny how we’re raising an issue of privacy around Project Green Light and facial recognition and that these city council people are outraged, just completely outraged, that we had the nerve to engage with public officials at their private homes," Taylor said after the meeting during a&nbsp;taping of the podcast. "That’s kind of the point, is that we have been surveilled on a daily basis in a way that you in your really nice neighborhoods aren’t. And so now you have a sense of how we feel, and we hope that that gets to sit with you for a while.”Councilman Andre Spivey said, as a public servant, he was unfazed by the caravan that drove past as he was working in his yard. But&nbsp;he said he was troubled by the disturbance it caused to his neighbors and the "waste" of resources for police to be in his neighborhood.&nbsp;At least three police cars sat near his home."But everyone has a right to protest," he said. "I hope that their protests be fruitful in the future, going somewhere where it is needed."The city paid more than $1 million for its facial recognition software in 2017. The contract extension with the South Carolina-based DataWorks would continue&nbsp;use of the software through September 2022 and cost an additional&nbsp;$219,934.Studies indicate that facial recognition&nbsp;technology&nbsp;is not as accurate with Black faces. &nbsp;have denounced the software as racist.&nbsp;Tuesday's meeting&nbsp;was held virtually using the Zoom video app because of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's stay-home order during the pandemic.&nbsp;The council heard from 15 people during the public comment period, though others said they&nbsp;indicated that they&nbsp;wanted to speak and weren't given the chance to.&nbsp;The majority of those who spoke urged the city to stop using facial recognition technology. Jones stepped away for most of public comment.&nbsp;Facial recognition technology&nbsp;"is a tool of institutional racism to the highest degree. And I just don't know how people of color can approve something that discriminates against people of color," resident Eric Blount said.Social justice activist Tawana Petty told the council that as corporations, states and other cities consider bans on facial recognition, “for some reason, the Blackest city in America is doubling down.”&nbsp;“I think that we have to keep it at the mindsight of city council, the detriment that this predominantly Black city would be in if we continue forward with the facial recognition contract,” she said.A date for when the contract will go before the council has not been determined, Jones said. It is set to run out on July 24, 2020.&nbsp;Contact AngieJackson: ; 313-222-1850. Follow her on Twitter:

Detroit Free Press The Detroit Police Department will&nbsp;conduct community outreach&nbsp;about facial recognition technology before&nbsp;city leaders vote on extending the software contract, City Council President Brenda Jones said Tuesday before blasting&nbsp;a one day earlier.Jones spoke at a city council meeting, where the&nbsp;proposed contract extension&nbsp;was originally scheduled to be referred to the council's Public Health and Safety committee. The item, which she said wasn't planned for a vote, was pulled from the agenda by Monday.Protesters who've&nbsp;marched daily in Detroit...

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Angie Jackson

The Detroit Free Press is the largest daily newspaper in Detroit, Michigan, US. The Sunday edition is titled the Sunday Free Press. It is sometimes referred to as the Freep (reflected in the paper's web address, www.freep.com). It primarily serves Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Livingston, Washtenaw, and Monroe counties.  The Free Press is also the largest city newspaper owned by Gannett, which also publishes USA Today. The Free Press has received ten Pulitzer Prizes and four Emmy Awards. Its motto is "On Guard for 189 Years".

Detroit City Council president slams caravan protest as 'totally disrespectful'

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