“Are you armed?!” the police officer shouted. “Step out of the vehicle!”
On what seemed like a typical Sunday afternoon in late June, I took the $155,000 Range Rover I was evaluating that week to run some errands with my wife. Little did I realize that decision would start a technological chain reaction involving surveillance cameras, AI, and law enforcement that resulted in my wife being surrounded by police and me, hands on their guns, in a Kohl’s parking lot in suburban Minnesota.
After returning our Amazon packages, we had just settled back into the Range Rover and reversed maybe two feet when four police cars appeared in a flash and surrounded us. The officers leaped out and began yelling. It’s a scenario that can swiftly become dangerous, so despite my lack of preparation, I complied with their commands, exited with my hands raised, and attempted to figure out what was going on.
Eventually, after a tense hour, I discovered the truth. The Plymouth Police Department had been monitoring me for days using Flock license plate cameras, awaiting the perfect moment to act, because they suspected I had stolen the Range Rover. The reason I was flagged as a criminal was due to a simple data error occurring 2,000 miles away in California, generating an edge case that Flock’s AI camera network could not address.
We currently exist in a surveillance society where cameras installed on traffic lights are observing our vehicles, our devices, our pets, and us. This is merely the onset; next, these cameras might be deployed on our children’s school buses. Regardless of whether you’ve actually stolen a vehicle or are simply cruising down the road having done nothing wrong, like me, once these systems have targeted you, there’s mostly only one path forward. Welcome to the future. It’s a frightening landscape out there.
Back in the Kohl’s lot, I stood there with my hands raised, still processing the shock of shifting the Range Rover into reverse and witnessing four police cars suddenly appear on the backup camera, lights flashing. Officer Max Ganshyn asked me again if I was armed or if any firearms were in the vehicle while two officers moved to the passenger side to remove my wife. He conducted a pat-down, and upon determining I posed no threat, he requested my ID. Then he inquired about the owner of the Range Rover.
“The answer is complicated, and I’m glad to explain, but I’ll need you to be patient,” I answered. I attempted to clarify what The Drive is, what my profession entails, and how I could be driving a luxury SUV worth six figures that doesn’t belong to me. A puzzled expression crossed his face. “Yeah, I’m not a car guy,” he acknowledged. Fortunately, one of the other officers recognized us.
On the other side of the vehicle, the officers were interrogating my wife; our accounts matched since we were being truthful, and they seemed to ease up a bit. However, they still weren’t letting us leave. I seized my chance and asked bluntly: What is happening here, and why are we being held?
“The plates on this vehicle are reported stolen,” Officer Ganshyn stated. My expression must have betrayed my disbelief because he continued, clarifying they weren’t sure if the vehicle itself or just the plates had been stolen. This was utterly baffling. Car manufacturers meticulously track the fleets they loan to the media. Each vehicle carries special manufacturer or dealer plates that are logged whenever they enter or exit. The officers eventually checked the Range Rover’s VIN, which returned clean, but they maintained the plates were surely stolen.
Before I could process that revelation, another officer dropped the big surprise: they had actually been surveilling me around town for days using Flock cameras. However, they kept losing track of me, so when a camera alerted them that the Range Rover was seen entering Kohl’s that morning, they swiftly set their trap and waited for my wife and me to exit the store and enter the SUV.
I was astonished but somehow still enough in control to ask if I could view the camera footage. One of the officers pulled out his phone, opened the Flock app, and showed me two images: a wide shot of the Range Rover navigating the intersection and a zoomed-in image of the New Jersey license plate, which clearly read 34 10 DTM and had VEHICLE MFR printed along the bottom. Notably, the number 10 was printed in a significantly smaller font compared to the rest of the tag, which is the non-standard format New Jersey uses for manufacturer plates.
I attempted once more to clarify that I had no idea why a license plate on a press vehicle would be flagged like this. “Can you call Range Rover?” Officer Ganshyn requested. A tall order on a Sunday. As I began dialing, he added that the plate had been reported stolen by a Jaguar Land Rover dealership in Los Angeles.
After a few attempts, I managed to reach someone at JLR on the phone and passed the call to the officer, who spoke with them for about 10 minutes. He hung up and approached with an explanation that resolved everything in a second but somehow made the situation worse.
The New Jersey plates that supposedly triggered everything were 34 03 DTM, not 34 10 DTM. However, when the police report was generated and the plate entered into Flock’s system, it was simply recorded as 34 DTM. Just the five large characters, without the small number in the center. Flock’s AI technology failed to recognize that non-standard small number when it began detecting the Range Rover around town. It merely identified 34 DTM in larger type and started alerting local law enforcement.
As we all stood there shaking our heads, including my wife, who was finally permitted to join me, I connected the final dot. Numerous vehicles in JLR’s media fleet carry a New Jersey manufacturer plate with the same alphanumeric format—34 ## DTM—and Officer Ganshyn noted that this turned it into a national issue. Wherever a police department has a collaboration with Flock, any other JLR-owned vehicle with the same plate configuration will be flagged as stolen. In fact, four more 34 ## DTM vehicles were being tracked throughout Minnesota that week, according to Officer Ganshyn. I was simply the first one caught. The only resolution would be for the LAPD to amend their initial report and update Flock’s system, which Jaguar Land Rover was now hastily trying to accomplish following the phone call.
Even so, he advised me to drive directly home, park the Range Rover, and leave it there. If I were to cross into the adjacent town, I’d likely be flagged again and endure this entire situation once more with a new set of officers. His parting words were foreboding: “You’re fortunate we’re in Plymouth. If you were in Minneapolis, they definitely would’ve confronted you with guns drawn.”
How ironic that this occurred not two weeks after we published a piece discussing the privacy risks associated with Flock license plate cameras morphing into a comprehensive surveillance system. The article went viral and was shared tens of thousands of times on social media. I suppose Officer Ganshyn didn’t come across it. Can’t say I anticipated becoming ensnared in the system so swiftly, either, but here we are.
A couple of days later, I received a copy of the police report that added an amusing twist to the situation. It turns out, the 34 03 DTM plate that instigated everything was, in fact, not stolen. “One of the fleet vehicles, bearing NJ 34(03)DTM, was utilized in a photo shoot in Los Angeles. During the photo shoot, that plate for the vehicle was misplaced,” it stated. “The corporation had to notify law enforcement about the plate being lost. The plate was reported as NJ 34DTM instead of NJ 3403DTM.”
It’s embedded above for your enjoyment. It was also somewhat entertaining to read a clinical account of police observing me before they surrounded me. “I observed the driver, who was a white male wearing shorts and a green shirt, as he placed something in the back seat of the car. I could also see a white female entering the front passenger seat. When the driver began entering the driver’s seat, officers initiated a box and pin on the vehicle.”
Additionally: “Both the driver and the passenger were cooperative and exited the vehicle without issue.” I mentioned to The Drive’s EIC, Kyle Cheromcha, that I’d like that in my permanent record.
However, finding at least some humor in one of the most absurd experiences I’ve encountered in over 15 years of reviewing vehicles does not diminish how completely ludicrous—and avoidable!—this entire scenario was. A simple data-entry error, amplified and broadcast nationwide by a growing surveillance network operated through a murky partnership between a private entity and public agencies, caused police to misidentify me as a car thief and arrange a sting operation to apprehend me. I mean, they even had a drone flying overhead during the “bust.”
And the more I’ve contemplated the aftermath, the more I’ve realized that with a different set of officers in a different city, or a different unsuspecting driver with 34 ## DTM New Jersey plates who wasn’t as composed, this could have concluded much, much worse. Thank God our children weren’t with us. I’m uncertain if I would’ve been able to react as calmly.
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