AI incident ·
York County, South Carolina, Deputies Reportedly Held Local Motorist at Gunpoint After Flock Safety License-Plate Reader Misread
In brief
An AI system built by Surveillance technology developers, Flock Safety and 1 other and deployed by York County Sheriff's Office (South Carolina), Police departments in the United States and 2 others allegedly harmed Steven Melvin, Road users and 3 others.
- Risk domain
- Not classified
- Occurred
- Coverage
- 1 report
What happened
Steven Melvin, a 42-year-old York County, South Carolina, motorist was reportedly detained at gunpoint for more than five minutes after a Flock Safety automated license-plate reader misidentified the first letter of his plate and matched his BMW to a similar stolen vehicle. The sheriff’s office later said an illegal tinted plate cover caused the malfunction and found the deputy’s actions “reasonable”; Flock said alerts should be independently verified before enforcement.
Editor's notes
The incident ID date is 02/14/2024, date of the reported stop. In November 2024, the sheriff’s office found Deputy Kyle Brogden's actions reasonable and attributed the misread to an illegally tinted plate cover. Melvin filed suit on 06/29/2026; the case was removed to federal court on 08/14/2026.
Laws that address this harm
No recorded instrument yet addresses this use case where it happened. See the open queue.
Matched from the record's risk domain and country to the instruments recorded here. A reviewer can correct the match in the repository (data/external/incident_overrides.yaml).
News reports (1)
Titles link to the original publisher; report text is not reproduced here.
Who was involved
- Alleged deployer
- York County Sheriff's Office (South Carolina) Police departments in the United States Law enforcement Kyle Brogden
- Alleged developer
- Surveillance technology developers Flock Safety Automated license plate reader (ALPR) developers
- Alleged harmed party
- Steven Melvin Road users Motorists Epistemic integrity Drivers
AI systems implicated
Surveillance technologyFlock Safety automated license plate reader systemAutomated license plate readers (ALPR)
Classification (MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy)
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Source record: incident #1713 on the AI Incident Database · all 1 report