By: Deandra Demonico
A lot of people are justifiably wary of the spread of facial recognition technology. But give the devil his due: it helped capture the nutjob who allegedly placed rice cookers in the Fulton Street subway station during rush hour back on August 16.
Larry Griffin II, a homeless man from West Virginia was placed in cuffs by New York City police officers back in March for alleged possession of drug paraphernalia at a Harlem shelter, according to published reports.
It was Det. Marcello Gianquinto who, according to the New York Post, “pulled still images of a suspect from subway security footage, color-corrected the snaps and was using a computer system to compare them to mug shots in the NYPD’s arrest database.
“The system spit out a few hundred potential matches, and by 7:45 a.m., Gianquinto had already narrowed them down to” Griffin, the Post continued, by “by comparing distinguishing features on the security footage with Griffin’s social media. By 8:15 a.m., Gianquinto had brought his findings to the head of the facial recognition unit, Sgt. Edwin Coello, for a second opinion — and then blasted them out to the cell phone of every cop in the department.”
Bail for Griffin was set at $200,000 by Criminal Court Judge Keisha Espinal two days after the incident. The 26-year-old Griffin was charged with two counts of placing a false bomb.
Griffin had previously been arrested two years ago by cops in West Virginia for allegedly sending a video, which showed him committing bestiality, to a minor, according to Gothamist.com.
“He was reportedly arrested by New York City police on drug charges in recent weeks,” the Gothamist.com report explained. “In a conversation with the Daily Mail, Griffin’s brother, Jason Griffin, claimed, “I tried to tell him to turn himself in and be calm but once I gave him words of rationality he hung-up.” He also said that his brother tried to check himself into a hospital but was refused, “He is bipolar and has never been medicated. We come from the South with not a lot of parental instruction from the family. He needs to be medicated.”
“Despite the speedy collar, the facial-recognition tech — designed by French security firm Idemia and South Carolina law-enforcement technology company DataWorks Plus — has come under scrutiny over its accuracy and because the NYPD has not released a comprehensive public policy on how the department uses it,” the Post reported. “While the NYPD only uses arrest photos as a reference — not driver’s licenses or other government-owned images — the department took heat earlier this month for comparing suspect images against juvenile arrest photos.”
