Minnesota man sues AI crime app over false reporting claims

Jeremy Moen of Park Rapids has sued an AI crime-alert app, saying CrimeRadar falsely linked him to a sex crime and damaged his reputation before the facts were sorted out. The dispute centers on how an automated summary can turn a routine police dispatch into something far more serious, with consequences that reach beyond one incident and into work, housing and standing in the community.

CrimeRadar bills itself as an AI-powered public safety platform that monitors live emergency dispatch communications and turns them into alerts and maps. On its own site, the company says the headlines and summaries are generated from unconfirmed dispatch audio, are not official reports, and can be inaccurate, incomplete or change as situations develop. It also says users can report inaccuracies and that the company removes posts flagged as wrong.

Moen says the app twisted a dispatch call into a sex-crime allegation. The underlying dispatch summary on CrimeRadar described a possible suspicious male taking photos of a woman and her property near U.S. 71 in Park Rapids, with the man reportedly leaving in a light blue Subaru Outback before officers arrived. Moen said the app misread details about his sun hat and dog, and he said he worries about being seen outdoors with his girlfriend Sam Wilson’s dogs, Snow and Maverick, because of how the alert was framed.

For a Beltrami County resident hit by a similar false label, the first recourse would be to preserve screenshots, audio links and the original report, then use the app’s inaccuracy channel to seek a correction. Minnesota Department of Public Safety guidance says victims can request a copy of a law enforcement incident report, and state law defines defamatory matter as false material that can expose a person to hatred, ridicule or injury to business or occupation, which is the core reputational harm in cases like this.

That matters in places like Bemidji and across Beltrami County, where a wrong accusation can follow someone into a job search, a rental application or a conversation at the grocery store long before a correction catches up. The lawsuit is a reminder that an AI summary can travel faster than the truth, and that in public safety reporting, one bad label can do damage that is both personal and local.