New Orleans has a law banning facial recognition technology (FRT). The City Council passed it. It’s on the books. NOPD is prohibited from using facial recognition technology except under extremely restrictive requirements that does not allow NOPD to use facial recognition technology (FRT) with Project NOLA.
Through public records requests, I obtained NOPD emails. Hundreds of them. In these emails, NOPD officers repeatedly contact Bryan Lagarde — the owner of Project NOLA, a massive private spy camera network that runs facial recognition across the city — and send him pictures of suspects, asking that those individuals be added to Project NOLA’s alert system. Their hotlist.
This is a request for facial recognition. It’s a violation of New Orleans law. It’s a violation of NOPD policy.
So I filed complaints. I expected a NOPD to get a slap on the wrist, maybe a strongly worded memo. I did not expect what actually happened: an official NOPD investigation that looked at the evidence, denied reality, and concluded that none of this happened.
There are 19 bullet points in this complaint. We’re going to go through all of them. Today we at the top: Part 1 Officer Cunningham.
On February 1, 2026, I alleged that NOPD Officer James Cunningham used facial recognition technology. NOPD’s official, signed investigation determined that “Officer Cunningham did not request the use of FRT.”
Let’s look at what actually happened.
March 18, 2025. Officer Cunningham emails Bryan Lagarde at Project NOLA. He names the suspect — Tyrin Calloway — states that Calloway is wanted, and attaches three photographs. This is the standard playbook. NOPD send pictures to the facial recognition system, the suspect gets added, and NOPD receives alerts when that face triggers a camera match. That is using facial recognition.
NOPD knows that it is banned from using most FRT so the request doesn’t explicitly say “Bryan let’s do some illegal FRT”. The request is implicit, but it’s obvious. Officer Cunningham is sending facial pictures of a man he wants to track on a facial recognition spy network. Officer Cunningham is clearly asking for facial recognition of Tyrin Calloway.
Maybe you’re not convinced? It’s not like Officer Cunningham explicitly asked to be aded to the facial recognition alert system…. right?
Now — for the truly pedantic — maybe “automated alerts” isn’t facial recognition. Maybe he just likes getting emails. Fine. Let’s go. Read on.
In the same thread, Bryan Lagarde — the owner and operator of the system — writes back referencing “FR cameras.” In context: explaining that in addition to French Quarter coverage, there are “FR cameras at Two Oaks.”
FR cameras.
I’ll let that sit for a moment.
The man who runs a facial recognition camera network, responding to a cop who just sent him a suspect’s photos and asked for automated alerts, is talking about his FR cameras. I don’t think we need to convene a symposium on what “FR” stands for here. And to be clear, there are facial recognition cameras at two oaks.
It gets worse. The email thread ends with Bryan Lagarde, from the Project NOLA facial recognition spy network sending Officer Cunningham a facial recognition match:
A signed, official NOPD investigation reviewed this evidence and determined that Officer Cunningham did not request facial recognition technology.
That’s not a mistake. That’s not a misreading. That’s a lie, documented in an official government record.
You don’t need to have an opinion on facial recognition to be disturbed by this. You don’t need to understand the technology. What you need to understand is this: the police conducted an investigation into their own misconduct, looked directly at the evidence, and signed their name to a document that denies reality.
This is bullet point one. There are eighteen more. We’re going to go through them all. I have the receipts. Every document is available at Project Mayhem.
