Police departments should be cautious before trusting AI software to find criminals after the news story that the Fargo Police Department used AI software to "scrape the internet" to find someone who commited crimes in North Dakota.
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| Angela Lipps of Tennessee; credit: Cass County Sheriff's Office |
According to CNN, the Fargo Police department has "acknowledged a few errors" after falsely arresting Angela Lipps, a grandmother and resident of Tennessee, and keeping her behind bars for more than five months.
Was the Fargo Police Department Mistake due to lazy police work or miscommunication?
According to CNN, the West Fargo Police Department acknowledged they use Clearview AI, and that "Clearview identified a potential suspect with similar features to Angela Lipp." West Fargo police then shared that report with Fargo police department.
Hopefully, Angela Lipp will get an apology from those who falsely arrested her.
Angela Lipp GoFundMe Page
Since the false arrest, Angela Lipp had a GoFundMe started and at the time of publication, it had raised $67,899 USD with a goal of reaching $75,000.
The GoFundMe description on the page reads:
"On July 14th, 2025 a team of U.S. Marshals showed up at my home while I was babysitting four young children. They arrested me at gunpoint and took me away. Until then I had never had a gun pointed at me. These poor children saw everything happen. It breaks my heart. They were so scared.
What I later learned, after many days in jail is that police in Fargo, North Dakota had been investigating a bank fraud case. A woman used a fake military ID to steal tens of thousands of dollars from banks in Fargo. The cops ran surveillance footage through facial recognition software. That AI software said it was me. A detective looked at my Tennessee driver's license and my social media and agreed. Nobody called me. Nobody asked me a single question. They just got a warrant.
I sat in a county jail in Tennessee for 108 days. They said I was fugitive from justice. I had no bail. No one interviewed me. I just sat and waited.
On October 30th I was taken from the jail and flown to North Dakota. It was the first time I had ever been on an airplane. I was terrified. They put a restraint device around my waist and handcuffed me and walked me through the airport in front of everyone. Everyone was staring. I was terrified and exhausted and humiliated.
I was given a lawyer in Fargo. The lawyer pulled my bank records and showed that I was in Tennessee the entire time. My bank records prove that I was at a gas station, ordering a pizza, and using Cash App at the very times they said I was 1,200 miles north in Fargo. I was taken by the U.S. Marshals on July 14th. It wasn't until December 19th that my lawyer and I finally sat down with a detective. It took five minutes for the whole thing to fall apart. Five minutes.
On Christmas Eve, after more than five months in jail, the charges were dismissed.
I was released into a North Dakota winter wearing summer clothes. I had no coat, no ride, no way home. Fargo police did nothing to help me. Local defense attorneys gave me money for a hotel room and food on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. A local nonprofit founder drove me to Chicago and from there I got back home to Tennessee.
No one from the Fargo Police Department has apologized.
I pleaded with the U.S. Marshals to get my dentures and take them to jail with me but they refused. For six months I had no dentures. Jail would not allow me to have them. You can see it in my mugshot. The one they put on the news. That photo was taken at the worst moment of my life and they published it for the world to see.
While I was in jail I lost everything.
My family put my personal belongings into storage but the bill couldn't be paid. Everything is gone. Everything. I lost my rental home in a mobile home park. I lost my Social Security income. I lost my health insurance. I lost my doctors. I lost my dog. I lost my car, a Chrysler Sebring convertible and everything inside of it. I lost brand new clothes and shoes that I had just bought. I lost tools, cables, a battery charger, a tire inflator. Everything.
I missed Halloween with my grandkids. I missed my 50th birthday. I missed Thanksgiving. I was released on Christmas Eve but I was stranded in North Dakota with nothing so I missed that too.
My neighbors watched me get arrested. People in my community assumed I was guilty. I was charged, so in their eyes that was that.
I gained 65lbs from fluid retention and poor diet when I was in jail. I just got my health insurance back and have an appointment coming up with a doctor. I don't sleep at night. I'm up every hour, thinking and praying, thankful that I'm no longer locked up but terrified that it could happen again. I shake when I think about that day. I am not the same woman I was. I don't think I ever will be.
I am now living with neighbors in the trailer park. I have no car, no money, and no way to start over on my own. I have always been an independent woman. I cannot start life again with nothing.
There are news articles documenting everything I've described here. Every word is verified and on record.
https://www.inforum.com/news/fargo/ai-error-jails-innocent-grandmother-for-months-in-fargo-case
If you can give anything, $5, $10, whatever you can, please know that it makes all the difference in the world. I understand if you can't give money, can you please share this story? That matters just as much. People need to know that this is happening in America and it could happen to anyone."
Sources:
Cass County Sherriff's Office.
Sottle, Zoe. "Police used AI facial recognition to arrest a Tennessee woman for crimes committed in a state she says she's never visited." CNN. 28 March 2026.
