Unfortunate that this junior employee is apparently anonymous.

Heck failed to disclose that the facial recognition result came from a photo on the suspect’s fake ID rather than surveillance footage. It also says he omitted that such results serve only as investigative leads requiring independent corroboration, rather than positive identification. According to the lawsuit, West Fargo police considered the results insufficient on their own to support charges.

There are theoretically policies in place for this, but the cop was fully ignoring them and couldn’t be bothered to do his job or care.

I was waiting for this as soon as I read the initial article. I hope she gets so much money she doesn’t know what to do with it. It obviously could never fairly compensate her for what she was put through, but the cops should not get away with this. It sucks that essentially the people of the town are going to be on the hook for the incompetence of the cops, but maybe it’ll change their opinion on the cops in the first place. She also separately named the cop, so good for her.