Facial recognition software remains a controversial technology, but in New Orleans it paid off when for police when they located a convicted child sex offender after a yearlong nationwide manhunt.
Police booked Christian Bert Fischer, 43, this week into a New Orleans jail after recognition software in “Project NOLA,” a national crime camera program, identified him in the streets, barhopping in the Marigny neighborhood of the city, authorities said.
Project NOLA, a nonprofit organization, operates an extensive series of privately owned surveillance cameras in the city. The U.S. Marshal’s Service had included Fischer in its database of about 100 wanted individuals, according to a New Orleans CBS affiliate.
The fugitive was sought for failing to appear at his trial in Hernando County, Florida, where he nevertheless was convicted “in absentia” of traveling to meet a minor, according to news reports.
Police first arrested Fischer in 2022 after he allegedly sent sexual messages to a recipient he believed was a 13-year-old boy, though it was actually a law enforcement decoy. According to the Citrus County Chronicle, Fischer allegedly showed up with “chocolates, candy, condoms, and an enema bag.”
After getting out on bond and skipping the second day of his trial, U.S. Marshals reportedly tracked him through California, Oregon, and Idaho before he turned up in New Orleans.
Facial recognition, as Breitbart News has reported, has been a hotly debated topic among law enforcement authorities, libertarians, and conservatives, as the technology could be abused and become a way to track innocent American citizens.
During the Biden administration, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) warned against its expanding deployment in U.S. airports by TSA, comparing it to systems used by Russia and China to track their citizens.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
