Detroit Police Chief James Craig Says That Rep Rashida Tlaib Is Appalling
The freshman Congresswoman from Michigan paid a visit to the Detroit Police Department’s ‘Real True Crime Center’. The invitation was made to the squad member after she called state of the art facial recognition technology the department uses as “bullsh**“.
The visit occurred on Monday, Tlaib asked the Chief if he was ‘hiring on black people to work with the facial recognition software’. The reason she asked that, ‘she said was because she thought ‘other races think all black people look a like’.
The Chief although shocked by her racist question, diplomatically said, ‘he hired people that are qualified to work with the technology’. Craig said race and gender plays no part in who gets hired to work with the software.
Craig in an interview on Thursday said that, he was ‘shocked by the remarks Tlaib made right to his face. He appeared on ‘Fox & Friends’ to air his grievances about Tlaib’s behavior and racists statements. Craig said on the show. “It’s the software, it’s bio-metrics, and to put race in it, we’re talking about trained professionals”.
Chief Craig Said Three Days After Tlaib’s Visit To The Department, He’s Still Shocked By Her Remarks
The Chief went on,
“My staff goes through intense training with the FBI, and so they are not looking at race. It’s metric measurements, so I tried to explain it to her. The analysts working on the software tried to explain it to her. We were appalled when she made the statements”.
Tlaib tweeted after the visit, that the technology the Detriot police department is using ‘should be done away with’. She repeated her racists remarks by saying, ‘All non African Americans think all African Americans look the same’.
Of that remark uttered from Tlaib’s mouth, Chief Craig said, “A terrible statement and as I’ve said and I’ll continue to say it. There is a double standard, if I would have made the exact same comment, they would have been calling for my resignation. She (Tlaib) would have been leading that charge, that’s a fact.
There is just no place for that type of racism. I’ve been getting so any calls, not just from this country. But from my own staff, I had to meet with the analysts working with software yesterday. I had to reinforce to them how much I appreciate their work. And I know that they are professionals, and we have been doing great work with facial recognition”.
The Chief Is Wondering Out Loud Why Rep Tlaib Goes Unpunished For Her Continued Racism
The Chief also added,
“we know there are flaws in the technology. We have addressed that through the rigorous system we have in place. We have a model approach, with how we use this technology”.
It was brought out during the interview, that the measurements of the face play a large role in the final analysis, race place a minor to no part in the end. The Chief said “I think some of the complaints, when you talk about issues with identification. Look if we didn’t have trained professionals behind the technology, I estimate it would probably incorrectly identify 97 or 98 % of the time. But that is not the case, we have trained professionals working in concert with the technology’.