AI camera technology helps Missouri police find suspect in double murder shooting

In the midst of the ongoing debate surrounding the emerging role of artificial intelligence (AI) in society comes a story of an AI program assisting in catching a man accused of murdering two people in Blue Springs, Missouri, USA.

According to charging documents, police enlisted the help of AI technology from Atlanta-based company Flock Safety to find a car linked to the incident, which then led them to the suspect Marquis Earl Lee Savannah.

Savannah was arrested on a warrant of first-degree murder related to the shooting deaths of two men, one aged 19 and one aged 20, on April 13, 2024.

City-owned cameras gave the police an order of events but did not capture the vehicle's number plate.

However, they did manage to get a good description of the car, enabling the Flock technology to identify the vehicle from other details.

“We can also search by make, model and other characteristics,” Blue Springs Investigations Capt. Kyle Flowers said. “If it has a roof rack. If it has bumper stickers, things like that. It uses AI technology to identify those characteristics of the vehicles.”

In this particular case, investigators were able to utilize the AI technology to take snapshots of passing vehicles and then code them with specific descriptions. They then narrowed their search based on location and timings to retrieve photos of every car that matched that description. Police can then put an alert on that vehicle to go off whenever cameras pick it up.

Court documents show that the Flock system identified the car and located it two days later at a nearby car wash.

A patrol sergeant responded to the alert and visited the location, a car wash, and took the driver into custody.

“We can also search by make, model, and other characteristics,” Blue Springs Investigations Capt. Kyle Flowers said. “If it has a roof rack. If it has bumper stickers, things like that. It uses AI technology to identify those characteristics of the vehicles.”

Artificial intelligence is spreading across many aspects of everyday life, causing significant concerns about the scope of its potential.

Blue Springs Police were clear about how they do and do not use the tool.  "It's an investigative tool only," said Flowers. "This is not live monitoring. This isn't for traffic citations or red-light tickets. These capture snapshots that are stored for 30 days, and we have to have an investigative reason to search for a vehicle."

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