Because of fucking course they did
For two years, New Orleans police secretly relied on facial recognition technology to scan city streets in search of suspects, a surveillance method without a known precedent in any major American city that may violate municipal guardrails around use of the technology, an investigation by The Washington Post has found.
“This is the facial recognition technology nightmare scenario that we have been worried about,” said Nathan Freed Wessler, a deputy director with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, who has closely tracked the use of AI technologies by police. “This is the government giving itself the power to track anyone — for that matter, everyone — as we go about our lives walking around in public.”
I don't know wtf this is all about, but it seems at least partially related to a very long convoluted story involving the New Orleans Sheriff, even before the recent jailbreak on Friday. She has been trying to get money from the city to repair issues in the overcrowded jail, such as broken locks, which apparently led to Friday's escape. There was a vote about continuing funding for the jail a few weeks ago that barely passed.
Then somebody filed a recount request under an alias. I looked the person up and realized it was somebody who had previously run for elected office in Louisiana, and was previously involved in revealing an astroturfing scandal against the city The recount ultimately increased the number of yes votes so the millage still passed by 4 votes to fund the jail, weeks before the jailbreak on Friday.
The most bizarre part of all of this, that I still don't know how to explain, is that the guy that called for the recount (and also revealed an astroturfing event with the current DA,.when the DA was still on city council) also ran all of his failed campaigns from a bar where Project Nola seems to have first established its cameras??
Project NOLA Executive Director Bryan LaGarde said, “We’re very thankful to Tim Blake, owner of the Three Legged Dog, for hosting the Project NOLA Crime Cameras that helped the Ricou family and the DA’s Office find justice for Russell. Over the past ten years, Project NOLA Crime Cameras on the Three Legged Dog have helped the NOPD investigate a large number of major crimes that regrettably occurred in the French Quarter, leading to a large number of arrests, which has very significantly benefited public safety.”
Frankly, kinda feels like I know too much already, but fuck. This literally all started bc I just wanted to make sure that incarcerated people in New Orleans still had access to mental healthcare.
Another article was written about the guy that filed the recount on May 9th. Tried to post it on the Nola subreddit, but it turns out Rouses is having an urgent sale on pot pies at the same time so not sure if anybody noticed.
Turns out there were 2 weird surprise military votes opposing in the recount that were "found at the last minute." Luckily the recount has increased the number of winning yes votes from 2 to 4, so the 2 found military votes ended up making the final count still yes by 2 votes
Yet they can't find multiple jail escapees lmao lmao
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/19/us/new-orleans-jail-escape-inmates-manhunt
Looks like the system isn't working very well.
Yeah I have my suspicions about that and who was involved in that inside job.
The governor released an EO the day before saying ICE would be using aggressive identification policies to search for individuals which I assumed meant facial recognition technology bc I have been worried about for a while without knowing the full extent of how it was being used. I actually posted a comment about the tech and the EO in the New Orleans subreddit that morning before anyone knew they escaped.
And then wouldn't you know it, the first suspect to be caught went to the busiest part of the city and was captured by state police due to the facial recognition technology.
Almost like this emergency gave the governor's state police the perfect excuse to have to partner with NOPD and start using that technology...
It's part of a very long series of crazy shit involving the New Orleans Mayor, the DA, the Sheriff the New Orleans sanctuary city policy and the Louisiana Governor
When the governor was still state AG, he began targeting New Orleans for its sanctuary city policy, which is really the result of a federal consent decree.
The city's mayor and DA have both been involved in their own political scandals, and both seem to have made a lot of concessions to allow Landry way too much authority in the city, including bringing in his own state police force, Troop Nola, last year.
The only person who hasn't backed down or tried to offer concessions is the Sheriff of the jail, Susan Hutson.
The following has all seriously happened in New Orleans over the last 3 weeks:
•Sanctuary city trial: The current Louisiana AG filed charges against Hutson to force her to lift what the state argues is a sanctuary city policy, relating to a federal decree placed on NOPD by the DOJ.
The AG, a long time friend of Governor Landry, argued that New Orleans was in violation of state law created last year.
That law was written by Blake Miguez, a different long time friend of Landry and member of his Louisiana DOGE taskforce. Miguez has also been helping the Governor restructure the Louisiana board of ethics following claims of ethics board violation, which have allowed Landry the ability to appoint the majority of the members of the ethics board directly, with less oversight.
•A Trump EO about ending federal decrees and sanctuary cities was released on the Monday night, (less than 48 hrs) before the Wednesday trial
Ultimately, the federal judge still ruled that she did not believe AG Murrill had the authority to make those claims against Hutson.
•The Saturday after the trial, the city held a vote to continue a millage, so that a small amount of property tax would fund the jail. Hutson said she needed the funds to make repairs to the jail, but faced a bizarre disinformation campaign falsely claiming voting yes would raise taxes. Nobody has ever taken credit for the signs placed around the city.
It just barely passed by 2 votes. A request for a recount was filed early the next week.
•The recount request was filed under an alias by somebody who had previously run for elected office in Louisiana, and was previously involved in revealing an astroturfing scandal against the city The recount ultimately increased the number of yes votes so the millage passed by 4 votes.
The most bizarre part that I don't know how to explain, is that the guy that revealed the astroturfing revealed it with the help of the current DA, who was a city council member at the time. He ran all of his failed campaigns from a bar where Project Nola seems to have first established its cameras??
•This past Tuesday the city submitted a request to lift the consent decree. The request was filed right at the 5 pm deadline
•Thursday Governor Landry released an EO urging Louisiana law enforcement to partner with ICE
From the Office of the Governor news release Governor Jeff Landry Partners with President Donald Trump to Launch “Operation GEAUX”
•Late Thursday night/early Friday morning, 11 prisoners escape from Orleans Parish jail
•Hutson is up for re-election soon. Candidates running against her are now speaking to the press, claiming this should make her ineligible to run for re-election.
As of late yesterday, it seemed that Landry was trying to shift the blame for overcrowding in the jail and the escape to DA Jason Williams
Even though it seems pretty obvious the overcrowding was due to Troop Nola suddenly arresting a ton of people and filling the jails