Truck driver Jason Killinger was arrested on September 17, 2023, at Reno’s Peppermill Casino after its facial recognition cameras flagged him as a “100% match” for a man who had previously been trespassed from the facility.
Despite producing his driver’s license, a commercial license, a UPS pay stub, and vehicle registration, Reno officer Richard Jager arrested him anyway, theorizing that Killinger must have had a “DMV hook-up” that helped him fake his identification.
Killinger spent about 11 hours in custody even after his fingerprints cleared him. The city continued to prosecute him until a judge finally dismissed the case in November 2023. Now, he is suing.
The new legal filing claims law enforcement agencies have known for years that computer facial recognition matches should not be the only basis for arresting someone, yet the Reno Police Department maintained such a policy under Chief Kathryn Nance anyway.
In 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice put out a policy template for law enforcement agencies saying facial recognition matches are "advisory in nature" and "do not establish probable cause." Numerous jurisdictions have since taken up this guidance.
Even the general public understands that “having a face that resembles the face of a criminal, without more, does not make anyone guilty of anything,” says Killinger’s new complaint by attorney Terri Keyser-Cooper.
“Jager’s conduct was not a sporadic incident involving the wrongful actions of a rogue employee, but the result of a widespread custom and practice involving hundreds of municipal employees making thousands of arrests in the same manner over a period of years,” it says.
Not providing training on facial recognition software puts Reno residents and visitors at risk of false arrest, the lawsuit adds.
The city attorney’s office, which represents Jager, says the officer behaved properly.
⚖️ WRONGFUL ARREST? A Florida crabber, Robert Dillon, was reportedly arrested in June 2026 after facial recognition allegedly linked him to a child-luring case in Jacksonville Beach—despite reportedly living 300 miles away. https://t.co/0WPg1wutW0
— Alex West Q (@RealAlexWest_Q) October 13, 2026
A fraud detective investigated the case afterward and concluded that the casino’s surveillance technology was faulty and that there was no identity theft and that Killinger did not commit the crime. The lawsuit came after a sergeant told Jager there was still probable cause to charge Killinger with identity theft. After Jager declined, Killinger filed the lawsuit.
Facial recognition technology often produces inaccurate results in real-world applications. This is especially true for those using lower-quality images from surveillance or social media. Several false arrest lawsuits have been filed by those wrongly identified by the technology.
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