Detroit, MI
Detroit woman sues city over false carjacking arrest while 8 months pregnant due to bogus facial recognition
A Detroit woman said she was falsely arrested for carjacking while eight months pregnant due to faulty facial recognition technology, according to a new lawsuit.
Porcha Woodruff, a mother of three, said she thought cops were joking when they showed up to take her into custody in February on charges of robbery and carjacking, according to the lawsuit, filed Thursday in US District Court in the Eastern District of Michigan.
“Are you kidding, carjacking? Do you see that I am eight months pregnant,” Woodruff told one officer who told her she had a warrant for her arrest on Feb. 16, the lawsuit alleges.
“I was scared, that was the main thing,” Woodruff told The Post Sunday evening after realizing cops weren’t joking. “What is going on?”
“There was no sympathy, there was like ‘OK let’s pause,’” she added.
Woodruff later learned she was being “implicated as a suspect” from a photo lineup shown to the victim following an “unreliable facial recognition match,” according to the court documents.
Woodruff has filed a lawsuit against the city and Detective LaShauntia Oliver, who spearheaded the case.
The now-dismissed charges against her came less than a month after a male victim called 911 on Jan. 29 and said he was robbed at gunpoint of his cell phone and car.
The charges were later dropped due to insufficient evidence.
The victim told police he and a woman had sex at a liquor store after meeting her at a market the same day, the lawsuit states.
The pair stopped by a BP gas station and the woman spoke with people there. The victim and female then traveled to another location where the victim was robbed by another man, according to the suit.
The male suspect had spoken with the victim’s female companion at the gas station, the victim told police.
The cell phone was later returned to the gas station by the female suspect where footage was captured of her, the lawsuit says.
Once the video was grabbed from the store, facial recognition was run that identified Woodruff as the woman in the video, the lawsuit states. The victim also picked Woodruff as the female he was with during the robbery, though he was shown a photo of her from 2015, the lawsuit alleges.
The 2015 photo was from an arrest tied to driving with an expired license, her legal team said.
Police had access to a current driver’s license photo, but didn’t show it to the victim, and Det. Oliver also failed to show the male suspect a photo of Woodruff after he was arrested, the lawsuit states.
When authorities came to arrest Woodruff, she was getting her two kids ready for school.
“(Woodruff) was forced to tell her two children, who stood there crying, to go upstairs and wake plaintiff’s fiancé to tell him that ‘Mommy is going to jail,’” the lawsuit says.
While detained for 11 hours, Woodruff was dealing with gestational diabetes from her pregnancy, the lawsuit states.
After she was released on $100,000 bail, she had to go to the hospital due to dehydration and dealing with contractions, according to the suit.
Detroit Police Chief James White told NBC News the allegations are “very concerning” and police were taking the matter “very seriously,” but couldn’t say more for now.
Attorney Ivan Land, who is representing Woodruff, said police should have done more investigating instead of relying on facial recognition identification.
“And if they were to just take a five-minute drive to her home, they would have saw her condition being eight months and they would have known that she was not the individual who committed the crimes of carjacking and robbery,” the attorney said.
Detroit, MI
Spotlight on the News: Inside the “red hot” Detroit Lions & the Michigan State Police
WXYZ DETROIT — On Sunday, January 12, Spotlight on the News will look inside the Detroit Lions’ winning season with Ann Arbor fan Barry Schumer, author of I Don’t Believe It…We’re Good? The New Detroit Lions. How does he rank this year’s team as they rest up for the NFL Playoffs? We’ll also have an insightful conversation with Colonel James F. Grady II, the 20th Director of the Michigan State Police. What are his plans for growing and diversifying the MSP?
Spotlight on the News, now in its 59th season, is Michigan’s longest-running weekly news and public affairs television program. It airs every Sunday at 10:00 a.m. on WXYZ-TV/Channel 7 in Detroit, is streamed live on wxyz.com and broadcast at 11:30 a.m. on 23.1 WKAR-HD in East Lansing.
Detroit, MI
Michigan native’s home in California destroyed in wildfire
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Detroit, MI
Detroit Tigers avoid arbitration with all nine eligible players for $26.76 million in 2025
Tarik Skubal on track for ‘recording-setting contract’ in free agency
USA TODAY Sports MLB columnist and insider Bob Nightengale breaks down the hefty pay day Detroit Tigers ace Tarik Skubal could demand in free agency.
The Detroit Tigers agreed to terms with all nine of their arbitration eligible players.
Their salaries are locked in for the 2025 season.
Seven players signed one-year contracts before MLB’s deadline Thursday to avoid arbitration: left-hander Tarik Skubal, right-handed reliever Jason Foley, outfielder Matt Vierling, catcher Jake Rogers, right-hander Casey Mize, right-handed reliever Will Vest and right-handed reliever Beau Brieske.
The Tigers already agreed to terms in late November with two additional arbitration eligible players: infielder/outfielder Zach McKinstry at $1.65 million and infielder Andy Ibáñez at $1.4 million.
Teams and arbitration-eligible players were required agree to salary figures by 1 p.m. Thursday. For those who didn’t reach an agreement, there was another deadline at 8 p.m. Thursday to exchange salary figures in preparation for an arbitration hearing to be scheduled within the next month. During the hearing, a panel of arbitrators selects either the team’s proposed salary or the player’s proposed salary.
The Tigers, under president of baseball operations Scott Harris, operate as a “file-and-trial” club, which means there would have been no further negotiations on one-year contracts after Thursday’s salary-exchange deadline.
However, the Tigers and their players will avoid arbitration hearings altogether in 2025, as all parties agreed to terms, extending the Tigers’ streak without an arbitration hearing to six years.
The most notable news from Thursday’s deadline: Skubal — the 2024 American League Cy Young winner who previously turned down a contract extension offer — settled with the Tigers at a $10.15 million salary for 2025, earning a $7.5 million raise from his $2.65 million salary in 2024.
Skubal, 28, will be eligible for salary arbitration for the third and final time after the 2025 season. He is scheduled to become a free agent after the 2026 season.
Aside from Skubal’s raise, Rogers settled at $2.64 million — up from $1.7 million last year — in his second year of arbitration and Mize settled at $2.34 million — up from $830,000 last season — in his second year of arbitration. Both Rogers and Mize, like Skubal, are set to reach free agency after the 2026 campaign.
The other six eligible players are in their first year of salary arbitration: Foley at $3.15 million, Vierling at $3.005 million, McKinstry at $1.65 million, Vest at $1.4 million, Ibáñez at $1.4 million and Brieske at $1.025 million.
Players must have at least three years of service time — or qualify for Super Two status — to be eligible for salary arbitration, then players become free agents after six years of service time. Therefore, most players are arbitration-eligible for a total of three years, but a Super Two qualifier — such as Ibáñez and Brieske — receives four years of arbitration eligibility.
In 2025, the Tigers will pay $26.76 million to nine arbitration-eligible players.
Here’s the full breakdown, listed in order of salary: Skubal ($10.15 million), Foley ($3.15 million), Vierling ($3.005 million), Rogers ($2.64 million), Mize ($2.34 million), McKinstry ($1.65 million), Vest ($1.4 million), Ibáñez ($1.4 million), Brieske ($1.025 million).
The Tigers are also on the hook for another $68.5 million to five players on free agent or longterm deals: SS Javier Báez ($25 million), RHP Alex Cobb ($15 million), 2B Gleyber Torres ($15 million), RHP Kenta Maeda ($10 million) and 1B Colt Keith ($3.5 million). The remainder of the Tigers’ 26-man roster, including players such as DH Kerry Carpenter and RHP Reese Olson, will make the league-minimum salary, set for $760,000 in 2025.
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For now, Skubal is the fourth-highest paid player on the Tigers’ roster in 2025, trailing only Báez, Cobb and Torres. Keith, who signed a contract extension before his MLB debut, checks in at sixth on the leaderboard.
Skubal made the All-Star Game for the first time in his five-year MLB career en route to winning the Cy Young in 2024, posting an 18-4 record with a 2.39 ERA, 35 walks and 228 strikeouts across 192 innings in 31 starts. He led the AL in wins, ERA and strikeouts to secure the first AL pitching Triple Crown in a full season since 2011.
When next offseason rolls around, Skubal is all but guaranteed to surpass $15 million (and could reach $20 million) for his 2026 salary in his third and final trip through the arbitration process before free agency.
The Tigers haven’t had an arbitration hearing with a player since Michael Fulmer in 2019, with Fulmer losing to the Tigers. Before Fulmer’s case, there hadn’t been an arbitration hearing involving the Tigers since 2001.
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him @EvanPetzold.
Listen to our weekly Tigers show “Days of Roar” every Monday afternoon on demand at freep.com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. And catch all of our podcasts and daily voice briefing at freep.com/podcasts.
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