Police to investigate after Detroit woman saw toddler detained, car seized
The deputy chief of the Detroit Police Department on Thursday promised a "thorough and complete" internal affairs investigation into an incident in which a woman complained she and her toddler were detained, and her vehicle was seized for more than three weeks after police use of license plate readers wrongly targeted her car.
The 2023 seizure of Isoke Robinson's Dodge Charger during a Detroit police investigation of a nonfatal shooting was first reported Monday by the Detroit Free Press .
The has ignited concerns about the proliferating use of license plate reader technology — high-speed cameras that photograph all passing license plates and place them in a database — by Detroit police and other agencies. To date, Detroit police have admitted no wrongdoing in the incident.
Based on information from a license plate reader, Detroit police handcuffed Robinson, put her 2-year-old son, who has autism, in the back of a police cruiser, and seized and impounded her only car for more than three weeks. But witnesses to the Sept. 3, 2023, drive-by shooting police were investigating never gave officers even a partial license plate number. And the man later convicted in the nonfatal shooting has no known connection to Robinson, according to a police deposition in a lawsuit Robinson filed in federal court in Detroit.
"Ms. Robinson and her autistic son were brutalized by DPD with this license plate reader technology," former commissioner Reginald Crawford told the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners Thursday.
DPD Deputy Chief Franklin Hayes, who was filling in for Chief James Wright, told the board an internal affairs investigation was opened in response to the Free Press and the department will report to the community on the results of the internal investigation within 30 days, though he cautioned the ongoing litigation could have an impact on what can be disclosed.
At the end of the investigation, "we certainly welcome the board's input and any revisions that may prevent similar incidents from happening in the future."
Hayes said that although the woman filed a lawsuit late last year, no complaint about the incident had been received by internal affairs or the office of the chief investigator. He said the Free Press was based almost entirely on Robinson's federal complaint. Detroit police officials had mostly declined to comment, citing the lawsuit, but the Free Press reviewed the entire transcript of a deposition given by the DPD's lead investigator in the case.
Among the items the investigation will cover, Hayes said, are:
Whether the shooting that led to the seizure of Robinson's car was properly investigated;
Whether all evidence, including evidence from the vehicle, was processed according to DPD policy;
Whether technology was properly used;
Whether the detainment of Robinson was supported by the required level of suspicion;
Whether the impoundment of the vehicle was supported by the required level of suspicion; and
Whether the vehicle was released according to DPD protocols.
Instead of punching in a suspected license plate number and finding out whether cameras in the city's network had captured one similar to it in the vicinity of the shooting, police worked backwards, according to deposition testimony. Using descriptions and photographs of the shooter's vehicle, they looked at which license plates passed a specific license plate reader around the time of the shooting and determined which of those plates belonged to a white Dodge Charger, according to deposition testimony. The license plate reader they used was about 2 miles from the scene of the shooting on Detroit's east side, but only a couple of blocks from Robinson's home.
Notably, images from Detroit "Project Green Light" cameras — a partnership between businesses and police that produces high-resolution photos of crime scenes — and a police report mention that the Dodge Charger used in the shooting had one fog light that was not working. But Detroit Police Detective Dion Corbin, Jr., who was in charge of the shooting investigation, testified in an Aug. 14 deposition that the entire time police had Robinson's vehicle impounded, they never checked to see whether both her fog lights were working, or not. They also never tested the car for potentially relevant evidence, such as gunpowder residue, Corbin testified.
Corbin did testify that a pistol found inside of Robinson's car was a significant factor in the decision to impound the car, but tests showed the gun was not connected to the shooting police were investigating. Robinson has a concealed pistol license and possessed the gun legally.
Darryl Woods, the chair of the commission, said he and some other commissioners were recently briefed on the incident and "we are very, very pleased that the department is moving very swiftly on this." Woods said he wants the investigation to be "very open and transparent."
Currently, lawyers are disputing whether Robinson should be allowed to amend her complaint, based on information she has gleaned through depositions in the case.
Paul Matouka, Robinson's Troy attorney, said he's happy that the DPD appears to be treating the incident seriously. "One of our concerns was making sure this sort of thing doesn't happen again," he said.
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or
