Facial recognition used to identify Lafayette Square protester accused of assault
By Justin Jouvenal, Spencer Hsu,
The Washington Post
| 11. 22. 2020
A line of U.S. Park Police officers pushed protesters back from Lafayette Square on June 1, firing pepper balls and rolling canisters spewing irritant gas into the retreating crowds on H Street NW, video shows.
Amid screams and smoke, a man in a tie-dye T-shirt pulled an officer to the ground and punched him in the face, before disappearing into the chaos, according to charging documents.
The man grabbed another officer, before police caught up with him and attempted to make an arrest, authorities said. But the man wrestled free and vanished once again.
The protester might never have been identified, but an officer found an image of the man on Twitter and investigators fed it into a facial recognition system, court documents state. They found a match and made an arrest.
The court documents are believed to be the first public acknowledgment that authorities used the controversial technology in connection with the widely criticized sweep of largely peaceful protesters ahead of a photo op by President Trump. The case is one of a growing number nationwide in which...
Related Articles
By Alondra Nelson, Science | 09.11.2025
In the United States, the summer of 2025 will be remembered as artificial intelligence’s (AI’s) cruel summer—a season when the unheeded risks and dangers of AI became undeniably clear. Recent months have made visible the stakes of the unchecked use...
By Emma McDonald Kennedy
| 09.25.2025
In the leadup to the 2024 election, Donald Trump repeatedly promised to make IVF more accessible. He made the commitment central to his campaign, even referring to himself as the “father of IVF.” In his first month in office, Trump issued an executive order promising to expand IVF access. The order set a 90-day deadline for policy recommendations for “lowering costs and reducing barriers to IVF,” although it didn’t make any substantive reproductive healthcare policy changes.
The response to the...
By Johana Bhuiyan, The Guardian | 09.23.2025
In March 2021, a 25-year-old US citizen was traveling through Chicago’s Midway airport when they were stopped by US border patrol agents. Though charged with no crime, the 25-year-old was subjected to a cheek swab to collect their DNA, which...
By Julie Métraux, Mother Jones | 09.23.2025