Detroit ‘Gang Squad’ Terrorizes Innocent Black Woman In Her Home with Guns Drawn, Then Forces Crying Toddler Into Patrol Car After License Plate Mix-Up — City Settles for $35K

Once again, Detroit police falsely accused a Black woman of a crime using the city’s multimillion dollar high-tech surveillance program — resulting in a $35,000 settlement for the woman that was announced this week.

Isoke Robinson was accused in 2023 of participating in a drive-by shooting through the city’s license plate reader program simply because she drove a Dodge Charger, which was the car described in the shooting — not because of any matching license plate numbers.

Identifying themselves only as the “gang squad,” at least 10 Detroit police officers showed up to her home in five patrol cars a few hours after the shooting, yelling at her with their guns drawn.

The cops handcuffed her in front of her home and placed her crying 2-year-old autistic boy in the back of a patrol car as they searched her home and car without a warrant, according to the lawsuit filed last year in federal court by Detroit attorney Mark A. Magidson.

After repeatedly asking the cops why were they detaining her and searching her home, one of the cops told her that her car had been involved in a shooting.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she responded, according to an interview with the Detroit Free Press last year.

She also told them she has alibis, telling the cops that she had spent the day with her family. And the lawsuit states she has no criminal record.

Although they did not arrest her, they impounded her car with her legally registered gun and purse which contained her drivers license, credit cards and her employment badge for Stellantis, a car manufacturer where she had been employed for nine years.

Without her car, drivers license and work badge, she was unable to get to work, placing her in danger of losing her job as an assembly line worker. She eventually borrowed a friend’s truck to drive to work.

Despite no evidence connecting her to the shooting, Detroit police refused to release her car for three weeks, and only because she hired a lawyer who made several attempts to get them to return the car before police finally did.

“She is suffering immediate and irreparable harm in that the police acting within the scope of their authority confiscated her personal property including her vehicle, which she needs to get to and from work and to conduct other necessities, confiscated her driver’s license, employment badge, credit card, child car seat and weapon that she lawfully owns and is licenses to carry, without due process of law and without any warrant or court order, contrary to and in violation of the 14th and Fourth Amendments to the United states Constitution,” states the lawsuit filed in October 2023.

Listed as defendants in the lawsuit were Detroit Police Chief James White and Detective Dion Corbin who was leading the investigation into the drive-by shooting that led them to Robinson’s home along with “nine unknown police officers of the Detroit Police Department.”

“Gang Squad”

Robinson was sitting in the air-conditioned car with her child with the motor running when Detroit police swarmed her home around 9:15 p.m. on Sept. 3, 2024, with guns drawn.

The cops did not identify themselves other than saying they were the gang squad. 

“The Nine Unknown named Police Officers of the Detroit Police Department are members of the so-called ‘Gang Squad,’ individuals who remained anonymous while pursuing their illegal and unconstitutional conduct,” the claim states.

The cops were investigating a drive-by shooting that had taken place earlier that day but when speaking to witnesses, they were told the shots came from a white Dodge Charger but did not even give police a partial license number, the Detroit Free Press reported.

Without a license plate number, police began working backwards, reviewing city license plate readers to see if they could spot a white Dodge Charger.

The license plate reader they reviewed was two miles from the actual shooting but only two blocks from Robinson’s home and that was enough “evidence” for police to terrorize Robinson and her child.

Furthermore, witnesses told police that the Dodge Charger involved in the shooting had only one working fog light.

However, police never bothered to test the fog lights in Robinson’s car or check it for gunpowder residue during the entire three weeks they had it in their possession, according to testimony from Detective Corbin.

And the man later convicted for the non-fatal drive-by shooting had no known connection to Robinson or her car.

The incident is the latest in a long line of similar incidents that have taken place in Detroit and around the country where technology like face recognition wrongly implicate Black people 35 percent of the time, according to a 2018 ACLU study.

Last month, Atlanta Black Star reported on another incident involving a Black woman named LaDonna Crutchfield who spent eight hours in jail after facial recognition software identified her as a suspect in an attempted murder.

In 2023, Detroit police used facial recognition software to falsely arrest Porcha Woodruff, a 32-year-old Black woman who was arrested on a warrant for robbery and carjacking while getting her kids ready for school.

Woodruff, who was pregnant, ended up spending hours in jail before she was released.

In 2019, civilian Detroit Police Commission member Willie Burton referred to facial recognition technology as “techno-racism.”

“Every black man with a beard looks alike to it. Every black man with a hoodie looks alike. This is techno-racism,” Burton said in a news interview at the time.

ACLU of Michigan is trying to get legislators to ban the practice of using license plate readers to match the description of vehicles without the actual license plate number.

“That is the exact kind of concern that we have that you’ll be wrongfully identified as a suspect of a crime simply because you have a similar car,” Gabrielle Dresner told the Free Press.

Paul Matouka, one of Robinson’s attorneys, agreed.

“If you’re going to use this, you need to make sure you’re using it right,” Matouka told the Free Press. 

“Showing up to her house at night with a SWAT team, essentially, is excessive. It terrifies the citizens. It makes them look like criminals to their neighbors, and it also increases the risk that there’s going to be an unfortunate incident where the cops shoot someone.”